woobly | smarter dining experiences

How might we reimagine the future of dining?

Enabling luxury restaurants to provide best dining experience to the diners and better able to manage operations.

My Role
  • User Research
  • User Interviews
  • Journey Mapping
  • Sketching
  • Wireframing
  • Screen Flows
  • Visual Design
  • Interaction Design
  • WaiterLITE Concept
  • 3D Prototype
Platforms
  • WaiterLITE Application - GUI for Raspberry Pi
  • ActionCENTRE Dashboard - Web Based
  • 3D Printed WaiterLITE Shell
Year
  • Mar 2018 - Aug 2021

Reserch

We at woobly wanted to get a clear picture of how our primary users went about discovering the restaurants for their hangout journeys. In order to get a better understanding of their behaviors and motivations, here are some research techniques I used for the redesign.

What does the current landscape look like?

Qualitative and Quantitative data


By performing in-person interviews and conducting surveys, I learnt existing user behaviors for restaurant discovery and management at restaurant side. Some of the learnings are shared below.

Online customers reviews


I sifted through hundreds of reviews and comments left by users on Google and Restaurant booking Apps , and further categorized them under buckets and highlighted them in terms of importance. This was some crucial feedback that helped me identify various pain points and areas of improvement.

Problem statement

Do you wonder what’s exactly happening in the restaurant?

Woobly | smarter dining experiences

Is service up to the mark?
How well is each waiter performing?
How efficiently are we running the show today?
Are the diners happy with their experience at my restaurant?

The two main reasons for the diners not coming back are

Service delays and/or Poor service
Food quality not upto the mark

For restaurants, it is very hard to track the dining experience of the guests in real time.

Woobly does this all by replacing dumb lamps with WaiterLITE on the table for diners and ActionCENTRE for the restaurants.

Customer journey

Based upon data from in-person interviews, surveys and user reviews, I organized my observations using a customer journey map.


This helped me expose pain points and areas for improvement in the app along the entire user journey. It also helped spark discussions to help close knowledge gaps and acted as a catalyst for idea sharing and generation between team and stakeholders. Furthermore, I identified various touch-points by intent and task including aspects such as emotions and expectations.

WaiterLITE

User needs & Business goals

The initial user research uncovered various areas of opportunity & for providing ultimate hangout experience to the diners we required:


At restaurant side...

Our UVP


Standardization in service and operations through technology

X for Y


ALEXA for restaurants (a smart table top device)

pin Digital assistant for waiters & guests
pin ActionCENTRE Dashboard
pin Smart Watch for Servers
pin Certified Waiter Training

At customers side (Diners)...

Our UVP


woobly helps to save your time and energy by making hangout experiences predictable, standardized and personalised

X for Y


UBER for hangouts

pin WaiterLITE - Your new waiter in restaurants
pin A Mobile application for the diners (Android/iOS)
pin Smart Valet - Hassle-free parking
pin Well trained Waiters

Goals for MVP

However, for the MVP, We kept in mind the business goals and organizational capacity and decided to enter the market from Restaurant Side only.

WaiterLITE

Structure

User Journey with WaiterLITE

I refined the concept with research outcomes in-line with our business goals and went through a few rounds of iteration using hand sketching to digital prototypes. I also came up with a revised and simplified information architecture that focused on providing hassle free dining experience to the users from restaurant side.

User Journey with WaiterLITE

(00/22)

Waiter map the Device with table

(01/22)

Device is ready to use

(02/22)

Guests will Check-In

(03/22)

Waiter will introduce WaiterLITE to the Guests

(04/22)

Guests will intract with the device

(05/22)

Guest will Tap on the screen to call the waiter

(06/22)

WaiterLITE will change its color to send signal to the waiter for attending the guests.

(07/22)

Waiter will attend the guests and close the service call.

(08/22)

Waiter giving the food menu to guests as per their request.

(09/22)

Guests checking current running deals of restaurant at WaiterLITE

(10/22)

Guests using Mobile Charging Feature

(11/22)

Guests using WiFi Hotspot

(12/22)

Auto Service Delay Alert

(13/22)

Manager will come to assist the Guests

(14/22)

Waiter serving food to the Guests

(15/22)

Guests asking for the bill by tapping on the WaiterLITE

(16/22)

Waiter giving bill to the Guests

(17/22)

Guest asking for QR code to pay the bill

(18/22)

Guest paying by scanning QR code at WaiterLITE

(19/22)

Guest providing Ratings for there journey

(20/22)

Manager getting the data on ActionCENTRE Dashboard

(21/22)

Manager knows everything about the Waiters Performance through ActionCENTRE Dashboard.

(22/22)

Ideas to Execution

I created working prototype of app in figma and went to the end users (farmers and Buyers) & collected the feedback, based on that i did multiple iterations to reach to the final flow of the app. Then i started creating UI Design for the app.

Azadpur Mandi

Ideas to Action

I sketched countless ideas and brainstormed various possibilities with my product team and created low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to test


WaiterLITE - A digital assistant for guests that takes over most of the waiter’s tactical functions to improve efficiency and elevate the guest dining experience at the table.

WaiterLITE

Diners simply interact with waiterLITE for any assistance and based on their interaction the waiters, managers can respond if it requires some action without diners breaking their conversations

Target market for MVP

Luxury restaurants


B2B

Experience-driven customers


B2C

WaiterLIGHT UI Designs

Click to preview in full screen

3D Design of WaiterLITE

WaiterLITE is a smart IoT device which looks like a lamp. During ideation and brainstorming about the WaiterLITE design we observed that :

pin 01. In most of the premium class restaurant they placed a dumb table lamp on the tables which is just to enhance the ambience and mood.
pin 02. In few restaurant we found some mobile powerbank companies are placing there charging devices on the table.
pin 03. There are some tent cards for Reserved Table, Chef Special, Deals, Discounts and so on.

All the above things are taking almost 40% to 60% of table space. So we decided to create a smart device which will replace all the above unnecessary things and will provide all the required information as well.

Hardware Breakdown

WaiterLITE Hardware

Final 3D Renders

WaiterLITE 3D Render


WaiterLITE 3D Render


WaiterLITE 3D Render

Pilot testing

Imagination to images

We did a small-scale preliminary test of a WaiterLITE with a limited group of real users, aiming to find flaws, test feasibility, gather feedback, and refine the design to prevent major issues.

WaiterLITE Testing

ActionCENTRE

ActionCENTRE is the hub to access all the restaurant’s analytics captured through WaiterLITE and intelligently identifies faults and suggests actionable improvements for better guest retention

WaiterLITE

MLP - Minimum Loveble Product

The ultimate solution for Smarter Dining Experience

WaiterLITE

WHAT NEXT?

Solving the chicken & egg Problem

We are implimention the MLP in the market (B2B Side - Restaurants). After successfully implimentation of MLP, we will come with mobile application for B2C (Diners/hangout seekers) and it will solve the chicken & egg problem.