What is Menu?
Menu is a mobile App to help people save time when dining out at some small size family owned restaurants where the number of server is very limited. It can also help them make decision for what to order by providing information that previous customers left. With the help of Menu, people can place order based on real photos and reviews; they can get through the ordering process and send order to the kitchen and pay the bill from their phone without waiting for the server to come. They can contribute back to the community by submitting their own reviews to help others.
The problem
There are lot of small size family owned restaurants out there that makes really good food. However, the number of server is very limited due to the cost. When dining at these restaurants the time spent on waiting for the server can be long. Also the wait time is segmented during the dining experience. The enjoyment of food itself sometimes got taken away because customer wants to draw attention from the server to get the help they need. Also the menu differs from restaurants to restaurants it take time to first learn how to order and then decide what to order by using apps like Yelp and Google Maps.
Challenges
The key challenge is How can we create a digital solution to help small individual restaurants to reduce the wait time and create better dinning experience for customers. The application has to help people save time when dining out and systematize the menu structure to reduce the learning curve and give suggestions to help them make decision. I want to build an experience to help them overcome these obstacles so that they can focus their time on food and looking forward to come back. The application also helps the small business owners save money by keeping the headcount low but still deliver amazing dining experience to the customers.
Core Experience
With the familiar menu structure, user can navigate through the menu at ease. Like shopping online user can add and delete any item and see the total before the order is send to the kitchen. Without any help from the server user can pay the bill from phone and walk out of the restaurant any time.
Current Customer Journey Map
I started by drawing out a journey map based on the current dinning experience. By doing this I started to see the key roles included in the journey and the relationship between them. The journey map also helped me understand the steps each role has to take in order to finish the task. My design challenge is to reduce the wait time and create better dinning ecperience for customer so I paid attention and highlighted each time customer has to spend on waiting throughout the map. This helped me understand when and why they need help and the potential oppotunities for design to come in to help them solve the problem.
Sign up with Facebook to speed up the on-boarding process.
Scan QR code to check the menu on personal device.
Systematized menu structure to shorten learning curve.
Customizable background to help business add identity.
Easy tap to add a dish.
Photo of the dish to provide visual aid and help decision making.
Know how many dishes already added.
See the popularity of a dish within the App.
Overview the order detail and easily change the number to fit the party size.
Large orange "Place Order" button encourages user to take action.
Large count down to keep user informed.
Check is ready as soon as the meal is served to skip the "Can I have my check?" step.
Message to confirm the action.
Store card for quick checkout.
Dinning history for quick search.