Twist - Find your favorite mixologist

Scope and Plan (13.25 hrs)

1. Pick design exercise (why that one?)  (15 min)
2. Information gathering - online research, existing products/platforms, competitive analysis - (1hr)
3. People research 
   1. Folks who like to dine out and would be inclined to write reviews for waiting staff. Pick 3 people for 1:1 20 min interview (1hr)
      1. 1. Millennials/Get Y: Young worker - who likes to hang out with friends and eat out
         2. Gen X: Family person - who goes out with their kids
         3. The Baby Boomers: 50+  - go out with their colleagues or partners 
      2. Research questionnaire: What questions do I want to ask to inform my design - (30min)
      3. Research Analysis and big indicators (1hr) 
4. Do a high level mapping for dine out experience (30min)
   1. What are the key motivators & factors to make this staff review succeed
5. Draw a high level flow of the experience (2hr)
6. Draw wireframes (2hrs)
7. Create a hi-fi mock (3hrs)
8. Put the case study together for presentation (2hrs)

Problem Statement

Wait Staff Reviews: While there are many ways to rate and review restaurants, these are not focused on evaluating individuals servers. Design an experience where diners can submit positive comments and constructive suggestions for the wait staff, and servers can use this feedback to both improve and help to secure new employment. Provide a high-level flow, supporting wire frames, and a high-fidelity mock.

Deciding factors:

1. I love eating out and food is my focus when I travel - I have dining experience from East Asia, India, Europe and the US.
2. I have folks easily available in my network for research candidates.
3. I still use Foursquare/Swarm for checking in to places.

Competitive Heuristics

Review categories and criteria

Whys and Whats

1. Why?
   1. Why should this experience exist? To help people express or make choices towards whether they should go to that restaurant or not because of that waiting staff? 
   2. Why do people want to review?
   3. Why do waiter’s want to be reviewed? 
   4. Why would people care about reading and considering what’s being said in the waiting staff reviews? Is it about the food, restaurant or people? 
2. What does this mean for waiters? 
   1. Does this implicate them?
   2. Does this help them show their employer their customer service?
   3. Do the reviews need to have anonymous functionality? for both the customer and the waiting staff? 
   4. Aren’t tips a mechanism for waiters to know their performance and customers to show their gratitude? Why need more? 
3. What does it mean for different countries and cultures
   1. Some countries like Korea don’t even have a tipping system but in general serving customers is considered a good cause. Positive service comes from within. 
   2. France and other European countries are considered slow, but Europeans think American dining experience is too rushed and they are being forced to hurry up.
4. What kind of dining experiences would be compelling enough for folks to write waiting staff reviews? 
   1. What Demographics would be interested in writing reviews for waiting staff? 
   2. What granularity of design is required? structured topics, unstructured - free form writing? does it need waiting staff’s name and photo for people to look them up? Right metrics and parameters to assess waiting staff? 

People Research

Research questions?

1. Could you talk to me about your decisions while dining out? 
2. What do you make of reviews? 
   1. dig in - See if waiting staff/service comes up and dwell on that. 

Research Learnings - Users (talked to 2 people 1:1 and 2 people in a group, 1 ethnographic intercept at a bar)

1. People have many ways to discover a restaurant - through friends, through online tools, wandering around and from what they already know. Waiting staff  does not usually contribute to dine out selection process. In some special cases if a host or a waiting staff member has acted out of bounds then that knowledge is shared publicly but is very rare.

2. People are apprehensive to write waiting staff reviews because usually its an establishment’s responsibility to control their service and waiting staff is a part of their experience.

3. Folks wouldn’t consider leaving waiting reviews on their restaurant finder app or any other medium in general. In cases if it was an absolute disaster or exquisite experience then they might share that experience through usual channels or write a review without pointing out the staff name.

4. Gathering reviews is a big challenge even for established platforms like Yelp or Google for valuable information like restaurants. Waiting staff is not necessarily seen as a contributing factor for peoples choices in their decision to dine out. 

the twist

AHA moment - Writing waiting staff reviews is odd. But I would write reviews for bartenders. Its like how I pay attention to hair-stylists even though they are a part of a salon/spa. It gets more personal and makes all the difference. They create the drinks and also engage with us. We are all curious to know who is mixing the best drinks in town! 

I went to my favorite bar later that day and they all said yes -

design considerations

• Create a mobile experience so people can take advantage of location, access information at their finger tips and leave reviews on the spot. 
• There are many ways to find bars but no way to find bars by mixologists. Quick and easy way to discover mixologists at bars highlighting their reviews and ratings. Spotlight is on mixologists- their mannerism, quirks and creations. 
• Its about memories and experiences and people value different things - provide an unstructured but simple way for people to express their experiences and compliment it with photos and videos to make the engagement rich. 

Experience and mood Indicators

• Glass and color are strong at a bar experience.

• It's aromatic

• It involves a lot of eye contact - attention and alertness but cool and in style

• It's light hearted conversational

• It's got drink advising and recommendation

• It's ambient but lively

• It's celebration

• It's relaxation