Project Proposal

Problem Statement

Most fast-food restaurants see the importance of reducing inefficiency in their standard operation while also having to keep up with the quality of their products and services. Some problems found in the existing fast-food ordering system are the following:

• Miscommunications between cashiers and customers: When the place is very crowded and noisy, this causes a major delay, especially if the cashier and/or the customers do not speak the native language.
• Food customization: The ability to customize food has been a crucial business strategy in the fast-food industry since Burger King launched the ‘HAVE IT YOUR WAY’ Campaign. Food customization allows some flexibility for customers who have special requests for their orders (less ice for the soda, no pickles, etc.) and is very necessary for customers who are allergic to some ingredients. There is no effective way to record this type of requests other than that the cashier has to memorize these requests, which often causes errors.
• Menu Display: Today’s fierce competition within the fast-food industry requires each company to launch new items on their menus on a more frequent basis. However, the menus of these fast food shops are usually permanently attached to the upper wall behind the counter. This makes it difficult and costly to update the menus. Furthermore, not all items on the menus have graphical illustrations to help customers make their choices, and the prints are sometimes too small to read.

Our team believes that an electronic ordering system can help alleviate these problems. The system will display the menu, help taking orders, customize customers’ orders, and take the payment, thereby minimizing verbal communications between customers and cashiers. The system should reduce stresses due to miscommunications and noisy environment. It should also allow greater flexibility in food customization and a more appealing menu display.

We choose to design an interface for McDonald’s (fictitious) ordering system. The system might consist of a kiosk with a touch screen and payment handling systems.

Some of the challenges that we anticipate in the designing process include the following: how to clearly present the customers their selection and choices, what type of information is necessary, how much graphical representation to include, how it handles special requests, and how to make customers easily adopt the system.

Characteristics of Primary Users and their Goals

Primary users of the system are McDonald’s frequent customers who are not afraid of novel technology. Repeat customers are usually already familiar with the menu and might care more about discounted combo meals and specials. Most importantly, fast-food customers typically want the food as quickly as possible. We think that our primary users should at least be comfortable using an ATM.

Their primary goal is to get the food they want as soon as possible.

Source of Participants

To aid us in the design process, we plan to interview some McDonald’s regular customers, who have different backgrounds. We will also ask them to experiment with our prototype to give us feedback in our iterative design process.

Initial Requirements

We have developed a set of requirements of the interface that will serve all the functions required by the system and will best suit the target users. Some of these requirements will be re-evaluated based on the interview results and in-store observations. The interface should:

• Have graphical illustrations of the menu together with the prices
• Present intuitive categorization of the food (breakfast, combo, beverage, snacks, etc.)
• Allow customers to make special requests
• Be user-friendly enough for the target users
• Allow easy navigation
• Highlight specials and promotions