Have you ever experienced a situation where you were preparing dinner for your family, and suddenly realised that a few of the ingredients were not sufficient to make one of the dishes? This is a common challenge faced by many restaurants and cafes as well.
This dilemma was the inspiration behind the creation of KitchenDash, a user-centric inventory management app designed to help cafe and restaurant owners seamlessly manage their ingredients and ensure they never run out of essential items, reduce waste and enhance their ability to provide consistent service to their customers.
Inefficient inventory management systems in restaurants and cafes lead to increased costs, waste, and operational inefficiencies.
• Create an intuitive, user-friendly, and efficient inventory management app.
• Empower cafe and restaurant owners to easily track, control, and optimise their ingredient inventory.
• Provide real-time visibility into inventory levels.
• Offer actionable insights and data-driven decision-making support.
• Include cost-saving features to enhance operational efficiency.
• Ultimately, improve customer satisfaction and streamline inventory management.
The interview was conducted offline through face-to-face interactions. I reached out to individuals I know who own a restaurant or work as kitchen managers, asking them the questions I had prepared and recording their responses.
1. Users would love to be able to access the ingredients from various entries.
2. Users value a feature that predicts ingredient usage based on historical data.
3. Users want a notification system to alert them when ingredients are running low or nearing expiration.
4. Users desire a streamlined process for adding receipts and updating inventory.
1. Over the menu section, users can check the receipt of a specific dish and view the ingredient, or add it to the cart.
2. Pop-up notification cards can be applied to the ingredients section to alert users.
3. canning the bar code of an ingredient pack can automatically fill in the information of the ingredient.
By listing all the steps that users will take, understanding their emotions at each stage, and recognising the achievements when users complete a task, I can understand users' demand, identify key touchpoints then design a solution for their painpoints.
This storyboard is a valuable tool for conveying information, generating empathy, and setting the stage for a presentation or discussion about addressing the problems faced by restaurant and cafe owners.
While envisioning how users would engage with the application, I couldn't help but recall an insight from the interview: users desire multiple entry points to complete their tasks. As a result, I developed two user journeys that start from different entry points - Ingredients and Menu/Recipe.
While various users may initiate a task from different entry points, they will always have the option to navigate to another entry point once they complete their initial task.
This creates a loop that ensures users have a seamless experience managing their inventory and menu/recipe throughout the entire product's core function, decrease drop-off rate.
Users can upload their menu recipes to the menu section, including all the ingredients required for each dish.
This data serves a dual purpose:
1. It provides users with insights into their top sales during
specific periods
2. Enables users to predict ingredient usage
To assist users in recording their ingredients with minimal effort, we integrated a barcode scanner into the app. This feature enables users to utilise their mobile camera to scan the barcode or QR code on a product package, providing easy access to all the useful ingredient information from the database.
When ingredients are in shortage, a notification will be triggered. Tapping the alert icon will expand a card displaying the shortage ingredients. Within this card, users can manage their next actions to respond accordingly.
The strategy of incorporating "Ingredient details" as a core function has seamlessly connected Menu and Cart, providing users with flexibility to interact with ingredients across different tasks like inventory updates, menu customisation, and cart management, fulfilling their accessibility needs.
When I repeatedly checked the user flow, I found that although I often emphasised that the relationship between ingredients and the menu is interconnected, the previous design plan did not completely achieve this design goal.
There is a disconnection between the ingredients and the menu.
Users can create new ingredients by adding a new recipe to the menu, which involves adding new ingredients. However, In my previous design, users had no option to create a new menu while managing their ingredient inventory.
How can I make it possible through my design?
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