Design team: Brandon Henzlik and Tyler Hahesy
Our system that my partner and I decided to redesign is the Aloha POS (Point of Sale) software. Aloha is a software system that is used by most corporate restaurants for inputting food and beverage orders, to processing payments. In our proposed redesign we have implemented some new features that we believe would make the system a better user experience overall. The first part of our redesign that we want to implement is putting pictures of the drink label instead of just the word. This would help servers when they are in a rush take advantage of the recognition vs recall system that our brain works off of. The second idea that we have is to utilize a drag and drop interface instead of a click to move interface. Since most systems now a days use drag and drop features this would give Aloha a more modern feel. Another feature we wanted to add is a smarter check splitting system. This would take the current four column check window and allow you the option to view up to eight checks at one time on the same window. The last feature that we would implement in our ideal redesign is the option to add more than one word modifier on a food order. The current system limits you to one, 16 character word modifier, which can cause issues in the event that you need to add 2 or more typed modifications. This redesign project that my partner and I are doing is part of Human-Computer Interaction course taken at California State University Channel Islands. This course covers the day to day interactions that humans have with all different kinds of interfaces and the process that goes into human centered design. We plan to pitch our ideal redesign to three different audiences. The first being servers who don’t currently use Aloha but will be switching over to it soon, the second being servers who currently use Aloha and last, the company Aloha itself.
The first audience that plan to pitched our redesign idea to was servers and bartenders that work in a restaurant that currently uses a system called Micros but the restaurant plans on changing over to the Aloha system. These servers use a system called Micros and have never used Aloha before. We thought this would be a good group to pitch our redesign to because they would have an opinion on the system in comparison to the one that they currently use. In order to hook our audience we are first going to start by asking them how they feel about the system they are currently using to get feedback about what they may like or dislike about it. From there, we are going to layout how the Aloha system works as a whole. We will focus on why the Aloha system is more efficient and easier to use than Micros. After that we will explain the technical details of the system by going over the constraints when trying to split checks, using the equal pay option, trying to charge for certain items, item modifier, etc. My partner and I thought this would be a fantastic group to pitch our redesign to because we will be able to get feedback from people who work in the industry but don’t currently have an opinion on the Aloha software.
The second audience that my partner and I plan on pitching our redesign to are servers in a restaurant that currently use Aloha. This audience is perfect to pitch are redesign to because they have used Aloha and have a good understanding as to how the system operates. In order to hook the audience we plan to get an idea of what their current frustrations are with the Aloha system which will set my partner and I up to express our frustrations as well. Or main focus is feedback, because my partner and I are aiming to improve the Aloha system in order to make the user experience pleasurable and run smoothly. In order to hype up the audience we plan to go over the technical details of what we would like to redesign in the hopes that they had previous frustration with the same technical details. For this group we would focus primarily on the issues of what we are planning to redesign because they already know how the system works.
The third audience that we plan to pitch our redesign to is the Aloha software company. We feel that it is important to pitch our redesign to them last so we can incorporate the feedback we obtained from our first and second audience. We would hook the audience by expressing the feedback that we have collected the current user experience that restaurant employees have using the Aloha system. My partner and I feel that this will urge the company to move forward with our redesign to improve the user experience. We would hype up this audience by expressing how much easier to use and efficient the system would be by implementing our redesign. We plan to specifically go over the details of the current frustrations with the system and what we would like to implement in order to enhance the user experience.
Our partner and I are going to approach these three audiences with different types of pitches. The first audience being servers who don’t currently use the Aloha system but are going to transfer over to it soon. Our main goal with this pitch is to persuade them that Aloha is a superior system to what they are currently using, but also receive feedback from frustrations of the current system. The second pitch to servers with experience in using Aloha is meant to find out if the ideas for our redesign match up with their problem space ideas as well. We will explain the details of how our redesign would make their jobs our easier and more efficient. The last audience that we are going to pitch our redesign to is the Aloha company themselves. Our goal with this pitch is to show them the feedback that my partner and I have collected from the different groups of people and show them why are design is superior to their current system.
We believe that our redesign of Aloha would greatly benefit all users from experienced servers that use the system to servers who have used other systems beside Aloha. In a fast paced industry like the restaurant it is important to have a system that can keep up with the users needs. The quicker a new employee in restaurant can become comfortable with using the system the faster the employee will be able to give quick and accommodating service. My partner and I feel that these three audiences are the best to pitch our redesign in order to get feedback and use that feedback to show the Aloha company the current user experience and the positives that will come from our redesign. By implementing our redesign into the Aloha system, my partner and I feel that the Aloha system will be running smooth with no hiccups that set restaurant employees back on a busy night.
