Overview

FoodQueue is an experimental user interface design exercise aiming to improve the restaurant queuing kiosks that are widely used in Hong Kong. It is based on analyzing major system types around the city, looking at their effectiveness and deficiencies. As this is a user interface design experiment the scope includes the UI design of the kiosk itself, as other functionalities such as SMS reminder service or companion mobile app functionalities will need to be explored in a more holistic service analysis in the future.

Background

In the recent years, queuing up or waiting at a restaurant for seating has become less and less of a necessity as the industry has moved towards automated ticket kiosks that can be operated by the customers without the need for interaction with reception staff. Many of these kiosk systems not only allow customers to get a ticket for the queue, but also see information regarding the status of their queue position and approximate wait time. Some services even provide mobile reminder so customers do not need to wait near the restaurant. In fact some systems go one step further and allow remotely getting a queue number from mobile apps.

The benefits of using such automated queuing kiosks is not the just providing customers efficient queuing process, but also allow reception staff to free up time from having to issue tickets in person and answer questions regarding queue status, a task that can be very repetitive. The user interface for these kiosks therefore needs to clearly present information and available actions to customers to facilitate an efficient process, as confusion with the system will inevitably lead to customers seeking help from restaurant staff, negating the benefits of the queuing kiosk system itself.

Problem

While the concept of a queuing kiosk is seemingly straightforward at first, how to present information and functionality to customers is important to its effectiveness and ultimately how successful it is to reduce the need for interaction with reception staff. At restaurants that are popular the success or failure of these kiosks can be magnified significantly when customers can get a ticket within a few seconds versus a long ling forming due to each customer taking time to figure out how to use the kiosk. As this research shall show, not all systems in use today are achieving this goal, and there are kiosks in the study that were observed to require significant staff intervention, leading to frustration from both customers and staff. Therefore, how to give the right amount of information and using information design to quickly direct users to what they need know and what they need to use is a first level priority for the new design.

Research

After interviewing people about their general experiences of using queuing kiosks, it was found that there aren't a lot of issues with how kiosks currently works in general. Most users find them easy to use and overall the experience has been good. Issues usually arises with individual system having usability problems.

Affinity diagram summarizing findings from interviews

Part of the competitive analysis done to find out advantages and deficiencies of each system

Redesign

Many good and bad design elements were identified from the systems being studied. From there a redesign was made to incorporate insights gathered from the findings and a wireframe was created.

Wireframe of initial kiosk interface design

The design is optimised for single-tap operation for most scenarios. The customers can simply tap directly on the party size to obtain a ticket, up to a certain number of table size (that limit shall be customizable by the restaurant management). If customers need to enter a larger number beyond what's available on the main screen, they are able to go into a more advanced page where a generic numeric keypad is used for entering numbers.

This design priortizes directness where for 90% of scenarios the users are given the easiest, shortest route to their goal, however in the remaining scenario (in this case a larger party) the fallback solution is designed to still be familiar to users by providing a simple numeric keypad that most people already have ample of experience with. It is also designed to reduce as much confusion as possible by disabling controls whenever they should not be available, and by how controls visually present themselves and where they are placed, reducing the likelihood of user errors or paths that may lead to undesirable outcome.

Prototype

Challenges and Limitations

Admittedy, queuing kiosk systems are widely used in Hong Kong and their designs have over the years converged to provide streamlined and easy-to-read information. Finding from this study suggests that while some individual systems have their usability issues, the UI designs on most kiosks in use today are already very good in terms of providing what customers expects. Future improvements will likely lie not in how the interface looks and interacts with users, but the actual services and features available. Further research in a more holistic workflow analysis will hopefully reveal where opportunities and feature gaps are available.