Design Exercise • Wait Staff Review
Are You Being Served?
When I first selected the Wait Staff Review design exercise I couldn't resist the urge to title it "Are You Being Served?". That title shares its name with a classic BBC/PBS sitcom that follows the comedic adventures and misfortunes of a group of retail workers who interface with each other and the general public. Given the countless stories I've heard over the years regarding restaurant experiences, from both those working inside the restaurant industry to dining patrons (including my own stories), I was willing to bet the sitcom-inspired title would be just fitting. Not to mention the title appears to touch the core of what this product/service is required to focus on:
"...an experience where diners can submit positive comments and constructive suggestions for the wait staff, and servers can use this feedback..."
Waitstaff:
Theory vs Reality
Just what is a waitstaff? I read the project description at least 10 times, parsing each word, before that question hit me. I had my assumptions on what a “waitstaff" was and both Oxford and Dictionary.com confirmed those initial assumptions.
Waitstaff •noun \wāt-ˌstaf \ : waiters and waitresses collectively. --Oxford Dictionary
However, moments later I began to question this definition. On reflection, I have personally experienced, on more than one occasion, a restaurant manager “seating and waiting” my table when short-staffed or a busser bringing food and condiments to my table. If the formal definition of the "waitstaff" is reserved for those who hold official titles as "waiter" or "waitress" then where do managers or bussers fit in when acting as waiter/waitress at any given moment? After all, wouldn't my positive and or negative experience and feedback be contingent on their service?
It became clear it was time to map out a diner's journey and gauge all the possible touchpoints.
I needed to visualize all the touchpoints to better understand where positive and negative experiences start in a restaurant, identify all the actors, and also their roles.
Diner Journey Mapping
(Note: I had several people review the above mapping to help validate accuracy. Some were frequent diners while others had experience as waiters. I ended up revising my map twice.)
“I always tell employees when presenting a write up that it’s a tool to help them improve their performance. ”
Interviews & Personas
Although I could now visualize the general experience, I was missing the "conversations" that happen within the experience itself; the ones that lead to positive and negative feedback. I had an outline but not a story. It was obvious I needed to speak with all the major actors to understand their thought processes, the jobs-to-be-done, and finally create personas as a reference.
The Actors
At the very minimum I needed to interview a diner, a server, and a manager. I felt it was important to interview a restaurant manager given the project description highlighted the need for diners to submit comments and suggestions, "for the waitstaff." It is a manager’s job to oversee the affairs of the waitstaff. I could only imagine there was already a process for this. I was curious to learn.
I turned to my sister-in-law as a resource for learning about the serving experience. She's worked as a waitress for nearly a decade and has experience everywhere, from mom-and-pop Mexican cantinas in Los Angeles to serving Sunday brunch to VCs at The Four Seasons here in Palo Alto. My plan was simple. Interview her then see if she could connect me with a former manager.
As for diners, I figured a few friends would do the job. A mix of single adults, parents, etc. A total of 3 in all. I initially thought about interviewing my wife however figured we think too much alike. I didn't want to taint my findings with bias.
Organizing Questions
I started by writing all my questions for all three actors on a separate sheet of paper to kick off a quick brainstorm before later organizing them in a prioritized Google sheet. My questions were designed to first establish who they were and later walk me through experiences good and bad. I wanted to know their belief system and expectations when in those environments.
Brief look at some of the questions I asked:
-How many years of experience have you had in restaurant management?
-What is your formal job title?
-What are your duties as a restaurant manager?
-When it comes to the waitstaff, as a manager, what are your expectations?
-Could you share an example of a time a customer shared a “positive” review about a server? Please walk through the experience. How did you share the news with the server, if at all?-What are your expectations from management when you are serving? Is there a difference from say, mom and pops vs. 5 star? Share.
-What are the types of tables you hate serving? What are the tables you looked forward to serving?
-What are some common mistakes you’ve seen servers make?
-How are Yelp reviews handled? Are there staff meetings? Walk me through an experience.-How often do you go out to eat?
-Can you share the types of restaurants you frequent?
-When dining, was there ever a time you had a bad experience and did not report it, why not?
-What are your views on tipping?
-Are there special expectations you have when dining given you have children?
Example of how I documented questions and responses from an interview with a restaurant manager.
Interview Recordings
All interviews were conducted by phone and recorded with the permission of each participant. Here are a few audio recordings from a conversation with my sister-in-law who has over 10 years experience waiting tables.
The Personas
Given the wealth of feedback from all three participants it was important to synthesize the information into digestible personas. The quick references would help keep things top-of-mind while designing the experience.
(Note: Information on the persona cards are real. Images are placeholders and some names have been changed.)
Ideation
At the start of this project I left my options open to whether the experience I'd be designing would be an on-site table-side tablet experience, or perhaps one that involves receipt order numbers, or maybe one that involves a standard mobile app. I walked through these experiences in my head and even took notes on the pros and cons of each one and finally decided on an mobile app experience due to the benefits of privacy, time, usability, and space.
Option 1: Receipt Order Number
The input of a receipt order number into an interface was considered as a way to validate whether an experience took place, mitigate abuse, and streamline waitstaff matching. However, this solution can break under many factors: (1) Fast casual restaurants that serve patrons like, say, Rubios® or pizza parlors have order numbers that match to a cashier NOT the person actually serving you at your table. (2) Not every mom-and-pop can be expected to use a system that features order numbers; think hand-written bills and receipts. (3) This method presupposes that every diner will, in fact, checkout; when they could have actually left early due to a negative experience and thus have now missed out on a feedback opportunity.
Option 2: Table-Side Tablet
I've used these devices in restaurants before and found them awkward to interact with given they are almost always perpendicular to the user and at a 45° angle. It usually results in one-handed pecking to interact with the screen. I could only imagine how long it would take a diner to leave a review. Also, table-side tablets are not for every restaurant and are mostly found in commercial chain restaurants. You would never see one inside a fine dining establishment like the Per Se or Masa in New York City. Below are other factors that could break the experience.
Option 3: Mobile App (and print promotions)
The mobile app appeared to be the best solution given it addressed all the cons of other approaches and didn’t relay on space and time. However there still needed to be a way to promote the service/product in a highly visible way. Solution: Promote the app on contemporary or classy table tents. Additionally, it could be advertised inside bill presenters or on the bill itself.
“One big question stood out to me around Grate’s “Add Server” feature. If U.S. Labor statistics state that the annual turnover rate for restaurants is a whooping 73% how do you guarantee the reviews and rating of servers tied to that eatery are up-to-date? How is that managed? ”
Inspiration & Audits
The first thing I asked myself before gathering inspiration from other apps was whether or not an app for rating servers already existed. Apparently, an app called “Grate” tried and failed. The app is no longer in operation however with a bit of digging I was able to find UX flows from the original designer and audit a bit more. One big question stood out to me around Grate’s “Add Server” feature. If U.S. Labor statistics state that the annual turnover rate for restaurants is a whooping 73% how do you guarantee the reviews and rating of servers tied to that eatery are up-to-date? How is that managed?
Grate - Defunct app that allowed diners to rate servers.
Below are just a few examples of app experiences that have some form of consumer facing rating system or view on performance metrics for taskers. I felt these would translate well when thinking about the diner and server relationship. I also wanted to open myself up beyond food related apps and draw on principles.
Screenshots of experiences displaying different ways of organizing feedback, reviews, and performance metrics.
Flows
There were two main objectives I had when thinking about high level flows. The first was to reference back to my conversations with participants and consider their concerns and goals. The second was to not over engineer the experience and keep steps to a destination minimal.
For example, in my interview with the restaurant manager, Ching, she expressed having concerns for dissatisfied diners however also liked informing staff members of positive feedback from diners. This lead to the idea of notifying both server and manager of all ratings and feedback given by a diner.
In my interviews with diners, they communicated occasionally going to management in both negative and positive encounters with waitstaff. It was important to them that an authority figure be aware. I wanted to design “awareness” in the form of “Seen Notification” once a server or manager was read their rating or review.
Wireframes
Brief captures (and chicken scratch) of my early explorations around what the experience might be. I referenced inspirations from above as well as design patterns and components from Material.io in the process.
In other explorations I toyed with the idea of having diners use identifiers like, hair color and hair length to identify a server. The issue with that is the feature no longer stands to be useful once hair color changes or hair is cut.
Early sketches of diner flow. Layout would began the more I thought about interaction.
Initial pass on the diner user flow
High Fidelity
The designs below utilize Material Design standards on an 8pt grid system with a splash of style.
User Validation
It wasn’t enough to come up with a solution without feedback from representative users. I presented my original designs to the same diners I initially interviewed and ended up making adjustments before finally settling on my high fidelities above. Shown below are the before and afters.
Final Thoughts
At the root of this product/service is the need to help people. The restaurant manager needs help understanding the pain points customers are feeling and be able to frame conversations with the waitstaff to address them. The server needs help understanding the service areas they are efficient and non-efficient in. They need understanding, insights and direction on how to make adjustments. The diner also needs help. They need an outlet to channel both positive and negative emotions around their experiences without the barriers of time and space.
The cornerstone to making this work for all parties is the experience the enduser has in the ratings/review portion of the app. Without that, the ecosystem breaksdown and the feedback loops can not take place. Which is why, “extensive research” into the pain points people have around ratings and reviews would be critical next steps to learning what works and what doesn’t for getting people to provide valuable feedback.
I would guess that the sweet spot would be where “valuable feedback” and “speed” meet. Maybe, using Google’s “Smart Compose” feature from Gmail could be useful. Then again, for others it could be delight that engages. Perhaps stickers, photos, and audio reviews would be concepts to test.
These are just a few great ideas I’d explore further in the quest to find the perfect suite of engagement tools that lead to help everyone involved.