Bringing Mixed Reality to Improve Service Quality in Restaurants
As a wait staff, has there ever been a time when you’re simply juggling too many tasks, but the real challenge is trying to remember which table has asked what? For example, having to serve table water/food, taking orders or managing and fulfilling a customer’s need, and the list goes on. Or as a customer, have you ever wondered what happened to that table water you asked for 15 minutes ago?
These are the service-related issues we were aiming to solve. How can we bring in a new form of interaction with an ease of use to improve the quality and efficiency of table service in a restaurant? This was the result of user research done in the form of observations and interviews by wait staff currently working in a sit-down restaurant with table service. A common challenge that all interviewees faced were with regards to the memorisation of multiple tasks and as a consequence, the ability to accurately and efficiently complete these tasks are affected.
One-Sentence Problem Statement
To design an interface that will support efficient and easy-to-use kitchen-to-table service by wait staff in a restaurant environment.
What is our concept?
Without specifying the use of a current existing technology, we explored a range of different human-computer modes of interaction, including gestural/bodily interactions, virtual, augmented and mixed reality. Through the proposed use of mixed reality, users would be able to have an unaffected view of reality with a combined view of augmented/virtual reality. The features of augmented/virtual reality that would be of benefit to this concept is a graphical interface to show the tasks upon the customer’s request displayed with the requesting customer’s table number, in order to minimise the amount of memorisation required in the scope of this job role. Tasks are displayed in a list format and organised based on the time of request and task importance. This list will be found on the user’s left third ratio of their frame of view with the mixed reality technology.
How does it work?
Customers are required to input into the system, through the request of tasks (currently four given task options, shown in figure 1) sent using a touch screen panel placed on each table, where the task is then visible to the user (wait staff) through the wearable piece of technology. The user is able to view the tasks in the task list (as shown on the storyboard in figure 3) as well as the task icon and table number hovering above the respective table. When the user completes a task, a swipe gesture to the left is used to clear away that task. Other gestural interactions include swiping up to view the order list (shown in figure 2) from which the wait staff will be taking orders with. The four given task options include the request for a menu, water, bill and to order. Other tasks (shown in figure 1) only available and visible to the users that is automatically input into the system include when food is ready to be served (from the kitchen), and when a table needs cleaning where the respective task icon is displayed following the processing of a bill request.
Evaluation
Majority of the feedback received was concerning a possible disruption in performance of users (wait staff) due to the placement of the direct interface (i.e. the task list) and how this technology could potentially take away the customer interaction that could affect the customer’s dining and service experience. Wait time between the customer’s input into the system and action time from the user, in other words, the minimal output from the system that notifies the customer of the pending action/s to their requests yet to be fulfilled was also a concern.
Possible future implementations
Based on the evaluation of the feedback received, version 2.0 of the system will no longer require a customer input as this minimised the interaction between the wait staff and themselves, therefore the wait staff will operate as they would without the technology in terms of taking customer requests. Users will have to approach customers to take requests and manually input it into the system by tapping on the icon respective of the request, which is then added into the task queueing list and will hover below the table numbers accordingly. Given the technology has the ability to spatial map and frame real-life objects from the surroundings, and has sensors to detect occupied tables and lighting up the opaque table numbers hovering above the tables. By implementing these changes into the system, any indirect interactions (i.e. customer’s input) with the system will be taken away, therefore customers will no longer feel the need to expect any sort of output/feedback from the system, in doing so, this will also bring back that verbal and visual interaction between the wait staff and the customers. With regards to the order list, rather than a swipe up from the user’s waist to open, it will be brought up to their middle third ratio of their frame of view as a means to create a slightly more reasonable action rather than an invisible object on the palm of a hand (in the perspective of customers). The aim of the change to the order list is to create an interaction that is more easily recognised rather than recalled, according to the Nielsen’s Usability Heuristics for Interface Design.
Critical Reflection
Our team process consisted of splitting up workloads, however a few things we lacked as a team was in communication and an equal understanding of the course content with regards to the design methods, usability heuristics, user experience goals, HCI design approaches and protocols. As a result, some were able to collaborate on the concept better than others, as well as the design processes going into it.
The main difficulties we faced was in relation to prototyping and testing, as mixed reality is currently not a widely known and common form of human-computer interaction, most testers were unfamiliar with the concept and are often confused with virtual reality. The testing process was often long due to the amount of explanations needed to familiarise users with the interaction paradigm prior to introducing our concept to find a solution for our problem statement. This was especially challenging, as the nature of the chosen method of prototyping turned out fairly differently to the actual technology, which as a result limits the forms of interaction required for users to engage with the system and display. However, having shown the users a video on mixed reality with a technology that already currently exist in the market (i.e. the Microsoft Hololens) was highly advantageous in assisting them to better understand the idea of mixed reality, as well as broadening the horizon of their idea of augmented reality as being virtual reality.
In terms of the design process and incorporating HCI methods, a cognitive approach to the user interface proved to be the most relevant to our design as majority of the bodily & gestural interactions and interface design/display were metaphoric to real-life functions and objects, and to a piece of technology device almost all humans in the 21st century are familiar with — a smartphone. In that sense, users were able to fairly efficiently identify its functions and uses, so that proved to be a positive point of success. The most crucial problem with the design of version 1.0 was focusing too much on the user’s perspective and failing to look at the worldly perspective, for example, the feedback that the customers would expect to receive upon placing a request (i.e. Has the wait staff received the request? What is the current status of the request? Is it possible to cancel the request?). Overall, it was a successful design project.
