Part A: Iterate your prototype There were two major criticisms with my first prototype. First, many people didn’t always prefer to view the menu online over in-person, claiming that it was easier to look over in person. Second, many people were skeptical about choosing a restaurant online, especially one they have never been to before, as going in-person allows a person to feel the “vibe” of the restaurant clearer. My iteration of my prototype aims to solve these two problems.
First, I tried to solve the problem about choosing a restaurant online. I added a more detailed, characteristics-based restaurant select screen, where each restaurant had three tags, like “Casual”, “Seafood”, and “Healthy”, that gave the customer a general idea of the restaurant. I also included a short description (about 2-3 sentences) for each restaurant, about their brand, specialties, history, and foods.
Another Function I added was the match function. When one is finished with a restaurant, they rate it on a scale from 1-10, based on Food, Environment, and Service. These ratings help themselves and other customers in the future, as it will show a percent match (due to AI processing) for future restaurants that pop up. For example, a 90% match would mean that this person would highly likely enjoy eating here, while a 10% match means the opposite. There is also a section where you can enter open-ended feedback, which the AI can process that will also affect the match score.
To make the menus easier to visualize, I added two options for viewing the menu: Image and Text. In Image view, the viewer sees an image of the food along with the name and cost, which they can tap on to see more information. In the Text view, they see the entree name, the price, the ingredients, calories, and other relevant information like preparation time and the number of food there is (like 6-count wings).
New Prototype:
Second Round Testing of Prototype:
Questions:
- Would you use this app over just walking into a restaurant normally?
- Do you find it easier to look over the menu in person than the app?
- Would you find it more convenient to use/participate in rewards programs with the app?
Answers:
Tester A:
- Sometimes (if friend is picky or something), but I’m not too picky so I’m fine with everything
- App (all info is there)
- Convenient, good if no pesky notifications
Tester B:
- Sometimes
- Generally easier in person, unless long-distance, phone screen too small
- Definitely
MVP of my prototype:
- Ability to place reservations at restaurants, and order the food ahead of time
- Notification prompting the user to order online, once they arrive at any restaurant
- Characteristics-based restaurant select screen, where users can easily choose and decide between restaurants
MVP+ of my prototype:
- Text/Image view of menu, making things more versatile and easier for the reader to understand
- Automatic enrollment and participation in all restaurant rewards programs, with the convenient option to easily disable any promotional offers and notifications from these rewards programs
- Accurate match function of restaurants, where depending on 3 ratings on a scale, it can pinpoint exactly which restaurants the user would enjoy (different from current systems because of the 3 rating scales, which current apps do not have)