User-Centered Restaurant Experience
Implementing Point of Sale (POS) systems featuring handheld devices may be leveraged in restaurants to improve customer experiences and maximize operational efficiency. This system will potentially minimize customer-waiting times by reducing inefficiencies in staff efforts and will provide a more customized restaurant experience thereby increasing customer satisfaction. Previous POS designs focus less on the human-machine system. The POS handheld device designed here will be specifically designed for customer use, meaning it has to be accessible by a wide range of users with different abilities. A review of the literature and existing designs provided a foundation for the system design. An operational concept was produced that was the basis of the design, since it defined all the components needed for the study. The requirement analysis emphasized the importance of integrating the physical, functional and operational views in order to achieve successful results. Other crucial items were the functional flow analysis and the task analysis, which were critical in defining the sequence to follow in the process of the design. Finally the design was evaluated in a global perspective. Issues including the impact of new products on system performance and how well the human-machine system concept was helped to improve efficiency in the restaurant system. Software and hardware component evaluations provided guidance in refining system components. A discussion of the limitations of system components provides guidance for future design improvements.