Improving Restaurant Point-of-sale Systems With A Focus On Interface Design 6m4n40

CS 3750 Group Project: Part 1 Team POSitive (Richard Bordianu, Edwin Choate, Eric Cochran, Leon Gill, and Harrison Obiorah)

“Improving  Restaurant  Point-of-Sale  Systems  with  a  Focus  on    Interface  Design” Introduction A restaurant’s point-of-sale system (POS) system is critical to a restaurant's daily operation. The restaurant POS system interfaces with all phases of the restaurant operation and with everyone that is involved with the restaurant including guests, suppliers, employees, managers and owners. The goal of our project is not to create a new restaurant POS system, but rather to create a model that can demonstrate how good design practices can be used to create an easy-to-use and intuitive interface (UI) that can be customized to meet all of the needs of any restaurant business. The requirements gathering portion of our project will involve speaking with people who work in the restaurant industry, for example owners, managers, and wait staff, to gather their input regarding the UIs of the POS systems that are used in their respective places of business. This step will involve istering surveys, conducting interviews and observing. Through this process, we expect to learn what s like and dislike about POS system UIs and the ways upon which these UIs can be improved. This critique of current UIs will then aid us in defining characteristics and use cases. Once we have determined the requirements of the , our next step will be task analysis. For example, some important high-level tasks that we have already identified as being relevant to our project include order entry, menu customization and employee management. In utilizing hierarchical task decompositions and workflow diagrams, we expect to gain a grasp of the most efficient and easy means of accomplishing various tasks. information that follows will delve further into the aforementioned topics.

The

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Requirements Gathering Methods and Critique Our group utilized three methods in generating our requirements: written survey, face-toface interview, and observation. We communicated with six individuals at six different restaurants, all of whom had varying degrees of experience in the restaurant industry and responsibilities within their current place of employment. The positions represented included cashier, host, server, bartender, manager, and owner. Some individuals held multiple positions. Of the six participants, five participated in face-to-face interviews, three allowed us to observe them interacting with their POS systems, and one completed a survey.

The restaurants

represented by our participants include Across  the  Street,  Chuck’s  Famous,  Yogli  Mogli,  Ray’s   Pizza, The Barrelhouse, and Gyro King, all of which are located in Atlanta, GA. The POS systems used  by  these  restaurants  include  HotSauce  (Chuck’s  Famous),  Aloha  (Across  the  Street,   Ray’s  Pizza,  The  Barrelhouse), Ambit (Yogli Mogli), and SPS-2000 (Gyro King). Survey The   survey   served   two   roles   in   our   group’s   requirement   gathering   process.     First,   the survey allowed our research participants to answer questions relevant to our project in a convenient manner, particularly for those who did not wish to be interviewed. Second, the survey questions served as a guide for the interviews that we conducted. Only one participant completed the survey, as the rest of our participants agreed to be interviewed. Figure 1 (below) is the survey we used and includes the answers provided by the participant.

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Fig. 1

Point-of-Sale (POS) System Survey for Georgia Tech Research and Design Project “Making  a  Better  POS  System  UI for  the  Restaurant/Bar  Industry” Thank You for Your Help! Name: [redacted] Job/Position: Assistant Manager/Server/Bartender Education Level: Primary Language: English

Secondary Language(s): Spanish

Tech Devices Owned (laptop, smartphone, tablet, game systems, etc.): laptop, smartphone, XBOX 360, digital camera On a Scale of 1 to 5, how tech savvy would you say you were? 1__Not at All 2__A Little 3__Average 4 (X) More than Most 5__Very Savvy What POS system does your place of employment currently use? Aloha What POS systems have you used in the past? Aloha, Squirrel, Micros & Hot Sauce In your experience, what has been your favorite POS system to use, assuming you have used more than one? Why? Aloha, very friendly when modifying orders, and the instructions for upgrading are easy to follow. What features do you find confusing or hard to use in your POS system? Haven’t  come  across any yet with the Aloha system What features do you find easy to use in your POS system? Splitting items for large parties

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Fig. 1 (continued) If you were able to fix your POS system tomorrow, what would you change? I  wouldn’t. What features or capabilities would you most like to see in a POS system? Smaller more compact systems, being in the industry space is limited at times, also maybe hand held devices, instead of caring a pen and paper Is your POS system completely touch-based? Yes What are the steps required for you to to your POS system (if any)? Would you change it if you could? I just input my employee code. I would like to see a fingerprint recognition implemented to increase ability. What steps do you have to take when entering an order? Enter my employee code, select the table and add items. What steps do you have to take when changing/voiding an order? For the most part a server would need management for voiding, then management would enter his or her code, highlight item and direct to certain areas for the void, whether it’s a server error, birthday comp, kitchen error, etc. For changing an order you would highlight the item or order that needs to be changed. What steps do you have to take when adding a new item to the menu or changing the price of a menu item (if you  don’t  do  this, you can skip this question)? You   need   to   go   into   the   Aloha   Management   software   located   on   the   manager’s   desktop, find the item you want change, then direct yourself to the page in which to make the change. Do you have any specific ideas or comments regarding POS systems that you would like to share? As technology advances I would like to see the POS system integrated into the customers’   tables, it would shift ability towards disgruntled customers with respect to order placing.

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This survey participant provided some very useful information. One drawback of the survey method is the inability to ask follow up questions if necessary to clarify answers. However,  in  this  case,  the  respondent’s  answers  provided  enough  detail  to  be  useful. Interview We were able to conduct face-to-face interviews with five out of our six participants. We found that the interviews were an effective requirement gathering method. Prior to beginning the interviews, background and context regarding the purpose of the interview were provided to the participants, which we felt was helpful in creating a cooperative exchange between us and the interviewees. Using the survey questions as the basic structure for the interview, we were able to gain additional insight via follow-up questions not contained in the survey. The interviews enlightened us on some of the basic tasks performed by s of restaurant POS systems and some of the problems and inconveniences encountered during those processes. This information allowed us to identify possible improvements with respect to UI design. Observation We observed and recorded on video three of the six participants interacting with the POS systems at their restaurants. At our request, the participants spoke aloud about the steps they were taking as they demonstrated how certain tasks were performed, such as placing an order. Observations were conducted in conjunction with the interview. Observations were conducted during our interview if the participant felt it would help illustrate a point or provide more clarity on a particular answer. However, our preference was to conduct observations after the interview because we felt that this approach would lead to more thorough walkthroughs   of   the   ’s   system. We believed that the interview would prime the interviewee to begin thinking of what problems existed in their system before showing during the observation portion.

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As with our interviews, our first-hand observations of how POS systems are used allowed us to note what type of UI elements were better suited than others in a restaurant setting. We identified specific design flaws and took note of how to fix them and translated these findings into requirements. A majority of the people we interviewed had used their current POS system, in addition to others, for several years. Current UI Critique There are hundreds of POS software developers and POS-Advice.com maintains a restaurant POS directory of almost 150 restaurant POS solution providers marketing their software in the United States.1 According to research conducted by Raymond James Investments in 2010, the largest market share of Restaurant POS systems was held by Radiant Systems (Aloha) and Micros Systems at 22.7% and 20.8% respectively.2 These two companies hold almost 44% of the restaurant POS system market share. Three of the six restaurants included in our research utilize Aloha as their POS system. Every surveyed who had used the market leading Aloha POS system preferred it over any other system they had used in the past, including HotSauce, Micros, and Squirrel. Some of the reasons people preferred Aloha included -friendliness, speed of operation, and ease of splitting checks among customers.

Nonetheless, the Aloha s also had some

complaints related to the UI design such as: 1. menu items got disorganized whenever you enter/update a new item (there was no logical order or layout to help when trying to find an item) 2. coding skills were required to make menu layout changes on the backend 3. button sequence to get do simple things often takes longer than necessary 4. placement of buttons is not optimal 5. lots of wasted black/white space

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POS Advice, LLC at http://www.pos-advice.com/hospitality-software Tillman, T. (2010) Surveyed 1500 restaurants; positive takeaways for RADS and MCRS. U.S. Research, p. 3.

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Fig. 2 – Aloha POS System Screenshot of Payment Processing Menu

This screenshot from the Aloha system shows demonstrates what some s did not like such as the button layout and large areas of empty white space.

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Fig. 3 – Screenshot  of  Aloha  POS  System’s  Order  Management  Menu

Aloha’s   order   management   menu (above) was described as easy to use and quick. Many functions can be accessed from this screen such as navigating through menus and submenus, adding items to an order, and splitting a check. The HotSauce order management menu (below) has a similar layout but was described as less intuitive, not as -friendly and functionally inferior to Aloha. Fig. 4 - Screenshot  of  HotSauce  POS  System’s  Order  Management  Menu

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Based on our research, the UIs of the most popular POS Systems, in of market share and , possess the common qualities of being -friendly and providing access to many related functions from a single screen. However, we have identified ways in which certain aspects can be improved. For example, s indicated a desire for an overall more modern feel and look with respect to graphic design and text. Allowing more controlled customization with respect to things like the color palette, font and icon selection could address this area. Also, this customization could extend to what functions or buttons are displayed to the . For example, the ability to remove buttons from the UI that do not perform any functions or are not available to a particular would be useful in increasing efficiency by reducing visual scanning and hand movement. Freeing up screen space in this manner would allow for a) more intuitive button layouts such as timeline ordering where functions are placed in the order in which they are normally performed, i.e. ticket creation

ticket submission

ticket closing,

and b) more useful information being presented on the screen or presented more prominently. With less clutter and better utilization of space, more creativity could be employed in how information is presented to the . Equally as important, the can more effectively and efficiently interact with the software.

For example, features commonly found in mobile

applications, such as swipe screen navigation, could be implemented into the UI to allow for faster access to various menus. Other implementations might include tools, such as a calculator, that can be easily accessed and hidden with a single button push. At this early stage, our ideas are not fully fleshed out, but as our project evolves, we expect to go through many iterations and experiment with different concepts and features that will incorporate the knowledge that we have gained from this course.

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Characteristics Our research has revealed that the most relevant characteristics are related to job responsibility. We found no relevant physical characteristics related to gender, race, size, or age that  would  affect  our  design  approach.    Basic  requirements  such  as  vision  and  use  of  one’s  hands   have been assumed. Any characteristic or quality preventing a from working in a restaurant would also prevent that person from properly using a restaurant POS system. The main s are divided into three distinct roles: 1. Supervisor – this role includes owners and managers whose primary responsibilities include staff and finance management, inventory management, menu editing and customizing, and permission based actions (such as comps and order voids). 2. Wait Staff – this role includes servers and bartenders whose primary responsibilities include order taking and entry and payment processing. 3. Host/Hostess – this role includes the host or hostess whose primary responsibilities include greeting and seating guests and managing customer traffic during peak and busy periods. Personas Alex (represents the supervisor ) – Alex is the general manager of a popular dine-in Mexican restaurant in a metropolitan area that employs five cooks, twelve servers, four bussers and two hostesses. Alex is responsible for the daily operations of the restaurant which include managing the employees and finances. He also has the authority to update the menu and authorize certain transactions such as comps and order voiding. Barbara (represents the wait staff ) – Barbara is a server and bartender at an Irish Pub in a small suburb. Depending on her shift, she is either behind the bar or on the floor. She can take

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food orders from either position, but when she is bartending, she is also responsible for preparing alcoholic beverages. She is responsible for providing customer service which includes taking orders and processing payment. Caroline (represents the hostess ) – Caroline works as a hostess at a nationwide chain restaurant specializing in American cuisine. Her job involves greeting guests as they enter the restaurant and seating them somewhere in the restaurant or on the patio. Once she has seated a party, she informs the relevant wait staff. She is also responsible for managing the flow of customers into the dining area, ensuring that tables are ready prior to seating guests and accurately informing customers of wait times when the restaurant is busy. Usage Scenarios Scenario One Alex, the owner/general manager, has decided that he would like to add a new appetizer to   the   menu,   the   Flaming   Flauta.     He   accesses   the   restaurant’s   POS   system   behind   the   bar   by   entering his , which gives him access to the menu editing features. He creates a new menu item with all of the relevant details and adds it to the appetizer section of the menu. After saving the changes, the Flaming Flauta is now able to be added to an order by any of the wait staff. Scenario Two Barbara is bartending on a Saturday night at the Irish pub in her neighborhood. Two guys walk to the bar and place an order for twenty wings and four draft beers. However, the two men want Barbara to split the cost of the order between them on two separate credit cards. Barbara logs in and enters the order into the POS system. She selects the option to split the cost evenly between two people. She charges the first card half of the order, and then charges the

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other half to the second card. She gives each guy a separate ticket and moves on to the next customer. Scenario Three Caroline is hosting on a very busy Friday night at a major chain restaurant in downtown Atlanta. A young man and his date approach the hostess stand and ask her for a table for two. Caroline logs into the POS system and checks out the floor plan and sees that there is only one table currently open. However, it still needs to be bussed. She tells the couple that it will be just a few minutes before a table will be available. Once the table is ready, Caroline walks the couple to their seats and upon returning to the hostess stand, she logs in to the POS system again, and marks the table as occupied. Implications As the data gathering process took its course, a number of consistencies began to emerge across various restaurants which suggest fascinating implications.

However, at times, the

contrasts between different restaurants was apparent. These similarities and differences for a variety of implications that are useful in determining subsequent steps to take in deg a well-implemented POS system UI that effectively uses good design principles. One interesting consistency involves the interviewees’   perceptions   of   their   own   technological know-how. When asked to  rate  their  own  “tech-savvy”  on  a  scale  from  one  to  five   (where five represented the most savvy), the vast majority of the interviewees identified themselves as a four on the scale  (or  “more  savvy  than  most”).    Regardless  of  the accuracy of the self-assessment, it suggests that the average interviewee is confident in his or her ability to navigate an electronic POS system with a certain degree of competency. This point is significant because it suggests that a sufficient demand exists for better POS system UIs. Demand for such

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a product is crucial to its success. Too little demand indicates that s would likely not notice or appreciate an improvement in UI design. When s were asked about their favorite existing POS system, there was a resounding consensus. The Aloha system appeared to be the clear winner. When asked what made Aloha better than its competitors, interviewees consistently noted that the system’s  UI was very friendly and intuitive. Three of the interviewees noted that Aloha was their favorite because it made it easier to split checks.

One server that shared this opinion was kind enough to

demonstrate how to split checks on an Aloha machine. Upon observation, the process of splitting checks appeared intuitive and easy to use. This pattern is significant because it suggests that across the board, s of POS systems desire easier to use systems than currently exist. There are a number of ways in which to implement POS system UIs. This collection of observations and was useful in determining that our design should be more flexible than currently existing systems. Another notable (and perhaps counter-intuitive) consistency between different interviewees was general contentment with their system. More often than not, interviewees expressed that they were satisfied with their systems and would not really change much, despite the fact that every server was able to identify problems or had complaints with their system’s  UI in some form or fashion. When interviewees did identify changes they would make to the system, they consistently ran into a problem - they did not have the technical knowledge to implement those changes. For example, an assistant   manager   at   Ray’s   Pizza   noted   that   he   wished he could change the organization of menu items in his POS system. However, he stated that neither he nor any other employee had the skills to make the change because doing so required software programming knowledge.

This complaint persisted from restaurant to

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restaurant which implies that a demand exists for the ability to make simple customizations to the system without needing a high level of technical skill. This point is highly significant with respect to the design of a new POS system UI because it dictates how customization should be implemented. Thus, it may be necessary to simplify the process as much as possible so that the average can easily make special customizations. With respect to restaurant operators, a survey conducted by Hospitality Technology, a media organization that covers technology trends and solutions in both the lodging and foodservice industries, reflected that restaurants have a strong desire for POS technology advancement, with five out of the seven capabilities it measured growing in interest over prior years, as displayed in Figure 5.3 Online ordering is the number-one choice for the second year running, with slightly more than half (51.2%) of all restaurant operators naming it as the POS feature in which they most wanted to invest in 2013.4 Interest in mobile phones for ordering and payment spiked too, with 48.4% of restaurant operators adding it to POS wish lists.5 Cloud computing saw the biggest jump, and was desired by 36.2% of restaurants in the survey (a jump of 17 percentage points over 2012).6 Thus, as our research has demonstrated, the desire for more features and technological improvements in restaurant POS systems makes a well-designed and -friendly UI very important. Increased functionality necessitates effective UI design that will facilitate growth and profitability.

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Lorden, A. and Creamer, D. (2013). POS software trends 2013. Hospitality Technology. Retrieved at http://hospitalitytechnology.edgl.com/news/POS-Software-Trends-2013-83583 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid.

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Fig. 5 – Most Desired Restaurant POS Features

Fig. 6 – Restaurant POS Purchasing Plans

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Requirements Summary Floor and table seating plans Justification - manager expressed this was an essential feature and eliminates need to constantly what table a server is assigned Check splitting Justification - essential feature that is repeatedly used day in and day out in every restaurant Personas: there are different categories (personas) of s of POS systems like Clerk/Cashier and Manager, the UI should present the relevant options to that logged-in persona according to these guidelines Justification - necessary for owners and managers of restaurants to define what their workers can and cannot do Time clock Justification - standard feature in all POS systems Menu ordering Justification - requirement for any POS system Ability to void orders Justification - requirement for any POS system Table-layout screen: can view all tables in restaurant and select and interact with the table they are serving with the table layout interface Justification - manager expressed this was an essential feature and eliminates need to constantly what table a server is assigned Easy to split checks: time to split checks evenly needs to be under 2 seconds Justification - we encountered a system that had this feature implemented as described, the s saw this feature as the highlight of the system Buttons big enough for any type of : ensure that each button can be pressed by someone with "fat fingers" as easily as smaller ones.

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Justification - requirement for any touch screen UI Proper screen alignment: ensure there are no screen alignment problems with the UI Justification - We interviewed a restaurant that had screen alignment problems with their POS system Flexible transaction building: don't force a sequence to transaction where possible, place product orders in any order and allow them to be changed at any point before transaction goes through Justification - waiters/managers explicitly told us they wish they could flow through different parts of the transaction sequence as they saw fit Use plain text: avoid abbreviations as much as possible (only use standard abbreviations e.g. size: S, M, L, etc.) Justification - increases learnability of the system which is what new s in a fast-paced restaurant environment need Product lookup: shortcuts for regular orders (i.e. burger meal), categorized browsing, and item name search Justification - waiters/managers expressed that unorganized menus in the system slow down orders; item name search was not included in any of our observed POS systems

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Task Analysis Supervisor (Owner/Manager) One of the many specific tasks that the supervisor will need to perform is to assign a server to specific tables. Servers   wait   on   specific   tables,   and   the   supervisor’s   job   is to assign them to those tables at the beginning of their respective shifts. Another   of   the   supervisor’s   responsibilities is to create and edit the menu as needed. The supervisor should be able to create and edit the restaurant’s  menu  at the POS system. Both items and their prices should be assigned by the supervisor.

A well-designed UI would ensure that either of these tasks could be

completed quickly and simply even in the busiest of environments. Ideally, major menu edits would be done during slow periods or during closing hours.

However, if items become

unavailable during operating hours, menu edits would need to be performed as quickly as possible. Hierarchical task decompositions and workflow diagrams detailing these tasks can be seen in Figures 7 and 8. Host/Hostess The host   or   hostess’   main   responsibility   is   to   greet   and   seat   the   customers.   He   or   she   needs to decide where to seat the guests, and additionally, note the seating and server assignment in the POS system to a) alert the server and b) inform the guests about who will be waiting on them. The host or hostess typically will be interfacing with the POS system at a station in the front of the restaurant. During busy times, the host or hostess will be performing these tasks often. Thus, with respect to UI design, the ability to determine seating availability and location must be able to be accomplished quickly. Once guests are seated, alerting the server must also be completed quickly. Again, a well-designed UI will is crucial.

Hierarchical task

decompositions and workflow diagrams detailing these tasks can be seen in Figures 9 and 10.

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Supervisor Task Example 1 - Assign Tables to Servers (Fig. 7) 1) Decide how many tables per server there should be. 2) Choose servers for table clusters. 3) Go to central computer/system. 4) Click server’s  name. 5) Click tables for server. 6) Click  “Done.” 7) Repeat steps 4, 5, and 6 until tables are depleted. Fig. 7 – Table Assignment Workflow Diagram

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Supervisor Task Example 2 - Create and Edit the Menu (Fig. 8) 1) Go to central computer/system. 2) Click  “Edit  menu.” 3) Select  item  to  change,  select  “New  item,”  or  select  “Remove  item.” 4) Select price for item (if existing item), enter item name and price (if new item), or select item to remove. 5) Click  “Done”  when  finished. Fig. 8 – Menu Creation and Editing Workflow Diagram

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Host/Hostess Task Example 1 - Assign Guests to Tables (Fig. 9) 1) Decide on a table for the guest. 2) Mark that table as seated on the computer. 3) Alert corresponding waiter. Fig. 9 – Guest Seating Workflow Diagram

Host/Hostess Task Example 2 - Retrieve Server’s Name to Tell Guests (Fig. 10) 1) When  selecting  table  for  guests,  look  at  table’s  server  assignment. 2) Announce server name to guests. Fig. 10 – Guest Communication Workflow Diagram

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Fig. 11 – Server Tasks Workflow Diagram

One  of  the  server’s  primary  tasks  is  to take an order and enter that order into the system. The server must be able to do things such as create, edit, submit, and close tickets.

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Reflections A challenging part of this phase of the project was physically coordinating the group for data gathering. With  everyone’s  different  and  busy  schedules,  it was difficult to find a time that worked well for everyone in the group. Yet, while finding a time that suited the majority of the group to meet was challenging, interviewing people and finding lull hours at the restaurants was probably the hardest part of this phase of the project. We found it difficult to speak with restaurant managers and having them allow us to observe the use of their POS systems. Many of the people we spoke with were concerned about what their POS system provider would think and were hesitant to show us the actual system. We were, however, surprised at how willing and forthcoming the people that we did speak with were regarding about the pros and cons of their systems. We were greatly appreciative of their contribution to our project. If we had this phase of the project to do over again, we would have ed managers of the restaurants we visited and scheduled appointments. This preparation would have allowed our group to gather a significantly higher amount of data on restaurant managers. In addition, we would have sought out more opportunities to find a greater variety of restaurants. We achieved diversity in the type and genre of restaurants, but the restaurants we observed and interviewed were primarily in the Midtown area. Gathering data from a larger variety of restaurants across different regions of Atlanta could have helped our data gathering process significantly. Compared to doing the legwork of interviewing and data collection, the writing and analysis was relatively easier after we had our data. If we had more time, we would have liked to research specific POS systems more thoroughly.