UX Vignette for Dinner: How the Transformative Power of User-Centered Thinking Extends Far Past Design Alone
In a multi-pronged effort to save up money for a UX bootcamp, push myself out of my comfort zone, and keep myself busy during the summer, I found myself taking on a part-time backserving position at a fine dining restaurant. My days were still spent as an academic library supervisor kick-starting user research for the college website redesign, and voraciously consuming all the design material that I possibly could. By night I was thrust into the dizzying dance of napkin folding, polishing, flipping tables & a seemingly endless wine list. While I hadn’t deluded myself into thinking the job would be easy, I still felt in over my head my first busy Saturday night. Prior to this night I had thought I was starting to get the hang of it all, but as all designers understand- sometimes you don’t even know what you don’t know, and confidence can come with an uneasy feeling that underneath it all, you’re missing something.
And I was.
This eye-opening night left me with a distinct “deer in the headlights” feeling that lingered for days after. I recognized in the blur of service that I had no clue how to fit myself into the bigger picture of the service flow, and my efforts at usefulness felt clunky and out of sync with the rest of the staff. I told myself ‘it’s okay, I’m new, I’ll get the hang of it the more I go through the motions.’
And I did.
I focused on my mental lists of to-do’s, things to keep an eye on as the nights unfolded. I constantly checked the water pitchers to ensure they stayed full at all times, eagerly awaited servers to direct me to tables that needed to be cleared, and wrote down the locations of miscellaneous kitchen items that I was always searching for in a hurry. But something still felt forced about my efforts, and I wanted them to come naturally. I watched the veteran servers expertly move through their nights, ushering the dining experience along with grace and nuanced efficiency.
One day, the restaurant’s head sommelier, a titan of hospitality and grandmaster of the service experience, sat me down to check in and offer some advice. I explained my desire to become more naturally efficient in the role, and that I had been trying to remember my list of responsibilities at all times to determine what needed to be prioritized at any given moment in service. The first thing he said was, “Look at the guests. Look at their table. What do THEY need in that moment? What facilitates their next action?” Sometimes you get a piece of advice that resonates so deeply, it hits you like a wall. Service flow. The dining experience. Facilitating actions. It was in that moment I thought “that sounds exactly like UX design…” and realized just how wrong my entire approach to backserving had been.
I was so focused on my own list of duties that I blinded myself to the entire point of the restaurant. Our guests came in for an experience, not just the food. Food is never just food, it’s an emotional endeavor, fueled by the people we eat with, how we feel when we eat it, and what it means to us once it’s just the memory of a taste. The overall experience was the goal for our patrons, and it was our job to think like them, for them, and take the guesswork out of their night. The list of responsibilities that I had made for myself was actually a direct result of responding to guest’s needs and expectations, and I just had to flip my perspective so that the list would follow naturally by tuning into the needs of our guests.
“…the senior servers and their memories. Their innate hospitality. Their anticipation of others’ needs. That was when service went from an illusion to a true expression of compassion. People came back to the restaurant just to have that feeling of being taken care of.” Stephanie Danler, Sweetbitter
Once I shifted my focus to the patron perspective at all times, my place in the grand scheme of the service dance fell into place immediately. By being of greater service to those dining with us, I became, by default, drastically more useful to my fellow staff. No longer was I anxiously running through my to-do list of clearing plates and filling water glasses. I cleared appetizer plates from table 22 because they finished quickly in their excitement for their entrees and needed to be reset, and I filled the water at 51 because I anticipated their glasses lowering faster as the night became muggier. The parallels here to design thinking and user experience are stark, and speak powerfully to the fundamental philosophies that designers use to guide their work. The user perspective, their emotional response to an experience, and the bigger picture of a product within their lives are all pivotal components to understanding what goes into a “good” design. As I dive into UX design more and more in my career, I am grateful for the outlook studying design thinking has allowed me to have in all aspects of my life.
