Work management platform for the restaurant industry
My Role
Create Brand Identity
User Research
Wireframing
UI Design
Prototyping
Testing
Overview
The Problem
For Restaurants
Restaurants struggle to hire, schedule, manage, and retain their workforce, setting a restaurant owner back by as much as $3,500 per worker.
For Workers
Secondary Research
I had started by identifying, analyzing and withdrawing insights from internet sources relating to the industry and competitors. The goal was to find potentially promising sources of information and use it to create notes for user behaviours/business needs and set the base for our primary research.
Articles, blogs and forums
Competitors
Hypothesis
We had broken down the most important sections that each user type faced difficulty with to structure our quantitative and qualitative research:
•Connecting with workers/employers
•Interviewing & Onboarding
•Scheduling
•Payments
•Rewards/Retainment
Primary Research
Survey | Quantitative
Based on our hypothesis, we had sent out a survey with questions regarding each section to our target audience. It included an email list of restaurant managers, students and young professionals that we received from our clients. Our goal was to screen some basic demographic characteristics, validate some of our assumptions, spot and group experiences and trends and learn how our target thinks in terms of their behaviour pattern.
Insights | Employers
Business processes & their importance to owners
Key recruitment factors
Currently Utilized Payroll Processes
71% of respondents showed interest in automating their payment system, with 54% ready to adopt automation if a better process exists
Other Key Insights
• 62% of the employers surveyed reported spending more than 2 weeks onboarding a new employee, from training to setting up schedules and banking information.
• 59% of the employers still communicate their workers regarding schedules/job-related notices manually through bulletin boards
Insights | Employees
Key factors for finding gigs
Worker processes and their importance
Worker processes and their importance
•63% of respondents claimed to request a shift change at least once a week, with an additional 20% requesting shift changes more than twice a week.
• 55% of our respondents attribute cash bonus as their most commonly received reward, with 73% preferring this reward over those of intrinsic value
Interviews & User Types | Qualitative
User interviews were quintessential. The complex workflows of the multiple user types and their interactions with one another needed to be laid out in detail. To achieve that, we conducted phone interviews with some of our survey takers to understand the challenges they face and what features would be necessary to eliminate the pain areas they face with our app. Below are the synthesized main goals and challenges of each user type.
1. Restaurant Manager
Goals
• Better finance & schedule management of current employees
• Keep employees happy and turnover low
Challenges
• Real-time functioning system for all scheduling/staffing issues
• Finding trained workers for urgent staffing replacements
2. Workers (unemployed)
Goals
• Find work that fits a flexible schedule
• Build experience and make connections
Challenges
• Comparing wages/criteria of jobs under one platform
• Missing opportunities/Lack of knowledge about available jobs
3. Workers (partially/fully employed)
Goals
• Transparency and efficiency in communicating with managers
Challenges
• Real-time management of scheduling issues (shift replacements)
Conceptualization
I started creating the information architecture, wireframes & flow for each of the main sections. We conducted usability testing of these wireframes with our target user groups. We refined them once we got some feedback, and started creating the UI once we got the green light. Below are snapshots of some of the wireframes.
Solutions
For Employers
Cut the evaluation process
The world is your applicant with this app. Search and view all the people in the area for people to possibly hire without them applying at all. Simply contact the person that fits the job!
Scheduling made easy
Manage both short term gig workers and full/part-time employees schedule directly through the application and piece together daily schedules with ease
Keep payments simple
The application automatically tracks the hours by each worker and calculates it with their rate and other taxes. Just add them to the schedule and you’re done!
For Workers
One-click applications
See all the restaurants looking for you in a single place. Filter by hourly rates or by the staff role you are looking to fill. Connect directly with the restaurant owners for opportunities.
Work on your own time
Set your availability and hourly wage for restaurant owners to see and contact you for.
Fit the schedule that you want to work for your own needs.
Easy Shift Switching
For full/part-time workers, easily request switches with other team members. The application automatically shows only those who are available and notifies the manager.
Web tool for admin
A Content Management System was also created for use by admin to manage the data. It includes the ability to update user profiles, send pre-boarded invitations to potential users, view and manage transaction and service queries as well as handle customer support.
Future Considerations/Learnings
• The project was executed sequentially in a waterfall method, but transitioning to an agile approach would enable quicker iterations and facilitate the timely release of a minimum viable product (MVP).
• Help prioritize and settle on strategic decisions early. This helps deal with out-of-scope requests that could potentially derail the project and helps deliver a quality product in time.
• Seeking out feedback continually. Keeping the stakeholders/users in loop and testing solutions in whichever form (paper, low-fi or hi-fi) as early as possible saves an ample amount of time and re-work.
