PAUL BERG
Paul Berg
◇
Product Designer
Many restaurant servers are not trained to pair wine with food and restaurants cannot find or afford to hire sommeliers. This means servers are unable to make optimal wine suggestions for their customers, which is a missed opportunity for restaurants to improve their dining experience and increase profits.
Provide servers with an app that pairs wine with the food their customers order without slowing down the customer interaction at the table.
We started the project by interviewing stakeholders and servers to better understand the problem we were solving. This surfaced key insights such as the app has to fit naturally into the conversation a server is having with customers, be usable with one hand while the server is standing at a table, and work in low-light and offline environments.
We also looked at other wine rating and recommendation apps such as Vivino to identify existing solutions and learn about how wines are talked about.
Workshops were used to define the first version of the app. We mapped the user journey, generated feature ideas, and identified the key features that were in scope as well as what features could come later.
We also shared inspiration and sketched ideas to get a better sense of what the client wanted before we started designing.
Multiple concepts were explored and shared with the client for feedback. This allowed us to quickly validate our designs and narrow in on a solution.
Wireframes were turned into mockups to work through interaction and interface details. We constrained ourselves to a UI framework we picked with our engineers to expedite development.
We created a clickable prototype of the app and showed it to restaurant servers for feedback. Designs were updated based on this feedback before development started.
Designs were documented in Figma and shared with our engineers. We answered questions during development in Slack and conducted visual QA as features were completed.
Once the app was complete we ran a 2-week pilot test at a restaurant in NYC. During these two weeks, we performed observational research as two servers used the app for their shift. These servers also provided feedback at the end of each shift via a survey and were interviewed at the end of the test for more in-depth feedback.
Overall, feedback from the restaurant staff and customers was positive. The servers said the app was a useful tool that empowers them to make more frequent and better wine suggestions. However, they also reported using a tablet in the middle of a busy shift is not realistic. Our takeaway was that a service that provides wine recommendations is valuable but that an app for waiters is not the best way to incorporate it in the service experience at restaurants.
The client is now using the app and results from the test to raise money to further develop the concept.
“Thank you AweSomm team! Mike Ashley, Marissa Corrello, Courage Nwaopara, and Paul Berg have designed and built a wine recommendations application that is now in the hands of servers at a restaurant on the Upper East Side and we've gotten really positive feedback from waitstaff, restaurant managers and customers. This was a massive undertaking in a short amount of time and I am really proud of what the team built. Thank you for your amazing work!”
Sarah Cassidy - Senior Product Manager, Postlight
