Kitchen Display System for NOMIA

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NOMIA is developing a mobile management system for small businesses in the food service, retail, and appointment-based service sectors. The primary segments targeted by NOMIA are small and medium establishments, with an average transaction amount of up to $30 and an average staff size of up to 20 people.

There, I designed a Kitchen Display System (KDS) from scratch for chefs.

Deliverables

UX design, UI design, Research, Prototype

Role

Senior Product Designer

Timeline

December 2022 → June 2023

1. Product brief

The kitchen display is a step towards automating kitchen processes, serving as a replacement for paper tickets commonly used in restaurant.

The main advantages of such optimization

Control of kitchen work quality

Ability to see the simultaneous workload of departments, their productivity, and timings

Dish composition

And the cooking algorithm allows for glimpses into the recipe details, especially for dishes prepared relatively infrequently.

Quality of service and customer service

The kitchen gains the ability to notify service staff about the readiness status of an order or dish through statuses.

Organization of delivery or self-service

Attracting another type of business – fast food.

Why we did it?

We planned that the product would expand the potential customer base and their average transaction amount. Increase business engagement in our product by enhancing the customer's lifetime value.

+10%

to the potential customer audience

+30%

to the average transaction amount

2. Design process

2.1 Roles

I defined two roles: chef and line cook.

Chef

The main task is to distribute dishes among the cooks. He also ensures that the dishes are served on time and meet the quality standards.

The chef is responsible for the entire kitchen staff. It's important for him to monitor serving times, dish quality, and the atmosphere within the team.

Additionally, the chef is responsible for managing the quantity of ingredients in the kitchen. It's crucial for him to ensure there are enough ingredients for the shift, understand when and how much to reorder to prevent spoilage. The chef must notify the waitstaff when certain dishes are not available for service today due to ingredient shortages.

Line cook

His main task is to prepare dishes according to the recipe, ensuring timely completion.

A cook may be new, and it's important for him to understand how the dish should look for serving. Alternatively, he might forget the exact quantities in grams needed for a particular dish.

It's crucial for him to understand which dishes in the queue he is preparing and which ones another cook is handling. Synchronization is key to ensuring everything is served on time and nothing gets cold.

Chef

The main task is to distribute dishes among the cooks. He also ensures that the dishes are served on time and meet the quality standards.

The chef is responsible for the entire kitchen staff. It's important for him to monitor serving times, dish quality, and the atmosphere within the team.

Line cook

His main task is to prepare dishes according to the recipe, ensuring timely completion.

A cook may be new, and it's important for him to understand how the dish should look for serving. Alternatively, he might forget the exact quantities in grams needed for a particular dish.

Chef

The main task is to distribute dishes among the cooks. He also ensures that the dishes are served on time and meet the quality standards.

The chef is responsible for the entire kitchen staff. It's important for him to monitor serving times, dish quality, and the atmosphere within the team.

Line cook

His main task is to prepare dishes according to the recipe, ensuring timely completion.

A cook may be new, and it's important for him to understand how the dish should look for serving. Alternatively, he might forget the exact quantities in grams needed for a particular dish.

2.2 Context and needs

Now, many restaurants use regular recipes. Why might they need a screen for automation? How can it help them? Why should they use it? What makes it more convenient than traditional paper tickets?

We believed it would be beneficial for chefs and cooks in many ways.

Quality control of kitchen operations

With regular paper tickets, it's challenging to calculate departmental workloads, average preparation times, and so on. Automating this process will enable more efficient kitchen management.

Saving on paper and devices

By implementing automation screens, an restaurants can save on paper and devices for printing receipts, as they will be needed less. This will be noticeable only over an extended period.

Organization of delivery or self-service

Without kitchen automation, it is impossible to organize delivery or self-service. And even if possible, the quality and speed would be severely compromised.

The ability to more transparently track ingredient levels.

The chef can receive notifications if a particular ingredient is running out, he does not need to manually check it all the time. Of course, manual control remains, but it’s time can be greatly reduced.

Storage of recipes and presentation photos in one place

If the cook has forgotten a recipe that is rarely prepared, they can always refer to the recipe or presentation photo in one place because sometimes paper recipes can be lost.

2.3 Deep dive into process

We decided to create rapidly low-fi sketches and prototypes for usability research with our audience. To understand their real problems and needs, as well as to understand how they use the system and how convenient it is for them.

Competitor analysis

Product Architecture

Prototype

Research

Design

2.4 Direct and Indirect Competitors

Next, I explored how various competitors implement features that users engage with. Here I found some interesting ideas.

First, almost all systems and cards have a simple design, without unnecessary elements. Second, users can see the status of receipts and dishes. The third thing is that users can also view the time, table number, and the waiter's name (but not all competitors offer these features). Additionally, nobody has a recipe for the dish, an indicator of how many new receipts are off the screen, and sometimes the design looks a bit bright, making it unclear what is important, what is less important, and what to focus on.

2.5 Product Architecture

For the first version, we decided to create 4 sections. We separated receipts into 'Active' and 'Archive' to prevent confusion for chefs when working with receipts. A distinct section for recipes was highlighted, and the ability to navigate from the receipt to the recipe was added. We also believe it would be beneficial to allow users to customize the system for themselves, such as choosing themes, adjusting the appearance of receipts, or setting up personal notifications. Additionally, we added a search function so chefs could easily find receipts by their numbers.

Active

Arhive

Recipes

Settings

2.6 Prototype and research

So, we decided to create rapidly low-fi prototypes for usability research with our audience. When I created prototypes, I thought it would be convenient for chefs to have the ability to quickly swipe to open a recipe or change the status of a receipt or dish to 'in progress,' or cancel some action.

We also had concerns about actions on the receipts. We wanted to make the system convenient and decided to add quick actions from the “Active” screen to, for example, the “Recipes” section or to quickly cancel the last action. And I need to understand if all the actions are accessible for our audience.

Additionally, we added the ability to “Collapse” receipts to see more receipts on the first screen, and we wanted to check this feature with our audience to make sure that it's needed for them.

First

All the chefs understood how the swipe mechanics work after they were shown. They noted that it's clear how it works because it's familiar, but they wouldn't have guessed that it's there.

Recommendation: Add an onboarding process for swipe mechanics.

Chefs note that reviewing recipe is not a primary function for them. This is because the person standing at the serving station and checking the quality is usually the sous-chef or the head chef, and they know the menu perfectly. They point out that this is more relevant for new chefs who are just getting familiar with the menu or in case the sous-chef or head chef cannot be present at work.

We decided to leave this functionality for the next iteration.

First

All the chefs understood how the swipe mechanics work after they were shown. They noted that it's clear how it works because it's familiar, but they wouldn't have guessed that it's there.

Recommendation: Add an onboarding process for swipe mechanics.

We decided to leave this functionality for the next iteration.

First

All the chefs understood how the swipe mechanics work after they were shown. They noted that it's clear how it works because it's familiar, but they wouldn't have guessed that it's there.

Recommendation: Add an onboarding process for swipe mechanics.

We decided to leave this functionality for the next iteration.

Second

Cooks did not understand the display of collapsed receipts; it is unclear how many are inside the courses. It is also unclear why this is necessary, as an additional action is required anyway by tapping on the receipt. This requires taking off gloves, causing distractions, which is critical for the kitchen.

Recommendation: We decided to skip this feature and research it later with more people.

Second

Recommendation: We decided to skip this feature and research it later with more people.

Second

Recommendation: We decided to skip this feature and research it later with more people.

In general, chefs understood how to work with the system; they liked the easier and more convenient screen. They mentioned that it's so good that in our system, we have information about the waiter and the ability to see comments on orders. They could understand the status of receipts.

What else?

Control of kitchen operations

Chefs note that it would be helpful to review the receipts at the end of the shift that they didn't have time to fulfill. Some kind of summary for the shift to analyze and understand how the kitchen operates.

Timer

Chefs noticed the time when a receipt was created but pointed out that it would be more useful to see a timer to understand how long the receipt has been hanging, rather than calculating this time manually.

We decided to save those features for the next iteration.

3. Design screens

The main screen allows chefs to view all active receipts. New receipts are highlighted with a different color to distinguish which receipts are in progress and which are not.

The receipts that aren't in progress are moved to the “Archive” so that they don't distract from the active ones. Additionally, archived receipts are highlighted in gray, and a check icon is added to indicate that they are not active. In this section, only receipts for the current shift are stored, as chefs don't need to view receipts from other shifts.

4. Summary

The development team created the first version, and I supported them. We launched it and decided to analyze the metrics for the potential customer audience and the average transaction amount. Additionally, when we attract a larger number of clients to our products, we will conduct another research to understand what is convenient, what is not, and what needs to be added.

5. Reflection

It's essential to share layouts with the development team in the early stage to ensure that by the time they can create it without any problem, and the design team won't have to make any additional adjustments. Also, constraints are stressful but sometimes helpful. If we had unlimited time or resources, we might create a recipe section.

Feel free to schedule a demo if you want to know more. Drop me a line anytime via email and LinkedIn

San Francisco, CA