Business Objective

How can we reduce protein waste, hit hot holding targets, and retain happy team members?

Task: Analyze the existing software product for the breading station (kitchen operations) and provide short term suggestions

Start of process
I immediately asked for a site visit so I can witness the product in use and conduct user interviews. I also conducted stakeholder and staff member interviews for history and context of the product. All was very valuable information and I was able to confidently provide short-term user interface and information architecture recommendations for the product. Below are illustrations but I will break it down here as well.

Current product
The current product was a major step up from the first version (not pictured and only contained batch estimates) because it could provide a lot more data. There is a virtual pan queue which tells the breader which pan they need to work on next based on an algorithm. It provides the batch estimates for each protein as well as the real-time pan status in hot holding and history of the last three pans. It also makes the breader aware of when the page was last updated.

Information architecture suggestions
- Add pan column displaying total pans being used whether in queue or hot holding
- Incorporate Food Safety instructions. The breader is working with fresh raw chicken. Better safe than sorry.
- Incorporate a footer with a refresh button. It will provide how recent of information the breader is looking at and give an indication if the screen has froze.
- Provide a made to order scenario. Often times when the restaurant is at the end of a daypart (breakfast or dinner) made to order makes the most sense versus continuing with batch estimates.
- Provide flexibility in the settings. Restaurants tend to have different needs when it comes to number of pans in rotation, how much to bread, and which proteins need more attention than others.
- I suggest changing the words "Actual Performance" with "Real-Time Hot Holding".

User interface suggestions
- The size of the text and use of fonts need a little refining. Some were way too small based on my kicthen visits and there needed to be more consistency and space between elements to allow easy viewing.
- The protein colors and stop light colors are competing with each other and are causing clutter. I recommend using shades of the protein color in the timer bar and emphasizing the target with the boldest tone.
- For accessibility, I would focus on color tones for the timer bar. Red and green are common colors people can not see but they can see light versus dark tones.
- I would take the small type out and provide icons on the edge of the timer bar.