The Bar Restock App

The Problem We Are Solving

Restaurants must track the beverage inventory they buy and sell, but may not have a system for tracking what they have or need when multiple people have access to inventory.

The Research

First we asked ourselves, what are the questions we have to come up with in order to determine the problem we need to solve. Who do we ask: Is it the manager of the restaurant, the bartender or the frontline staff? What is the current system they are using? Next we interview bartenders and frontline staff to record and analyze their perspectives.

The Findings

  • Bartenders and servers write notes during the day to track inventory and are compiled at the end of the night
  • Don’t have time during the shift to log items into the computer
  • Conducts inventory at the end of the night
  • Interface is inconvenient and cumbersome
  • There are three different types of inventory to track: wine, beer and liquor
  • Some beverages move faster than others
  • Point of Sale system produces nightly reports of what has been sold

Persona

Name: Rachel

Age: 23

Relationship Status: Single

Living Situation: 3 Bedroom Apartment with 5 roommates

Photo by Andrii Podilnyk on Unsplash

Motivations

Rachel is a college student by day and is a bartender at night. While bartending at her restaurant, she notices that her closing duties take up to two hours after her shift has ended. She has to log the night’s inventory as well as clean the bar. Rachel would like to simplify the process of logging inventory into her Point of Sale System in order to speed up the closing process. Rachel likes to practice yoga in her spare time.

Frustrations

  • Closing takes up to two hours after her shift and she would like it to take less time
  • Point of Sale System is clunky and confusing
  • Logging inventory takes up most of her time

Goals

  • Simplify her closing tasks and to speed up the process
  • Keep all her inventory organized
  • By closing earlier she can better balance her work and school commitments

The User Journey

User Journey: Day inn the life of the user
We mapped Rachel's routine for a typical day as well as the corresponding moods associated at each point. Our goal is to help solve those frustrating moments. Her most frustrating part of the day is closing the bar for the night.

User Flow

After 3 iterations a User Flow was established

Paper Prototype

After brainstorming, five iterations of the paper prototyped was made before testing this one the one scene below. We decided on a tablet format because it was most likely used by point of sale systems.
After testing with 4 users, the feedback we got was that the users liked that it was easy to use. Our users would like to see separate categories. We added separate list for beer, wine and liquor instead of one list.

Design Prototype

  All Inventory Screen

One major design interface change we made on the sketch prototype was adding at dashboard to replace some of the buttons. The dashboard made the navigation cleaner as well as decluttered the interface. Before there were numerous navigation buttons taking up space.

Conclusion

Did we solve the problems we wanted to solve?

Yes, throughout the process we made incremental changes which lead to a better prototype to track inventory.

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