Designing a food court food ordering journey

Design a food court food ordering journey.

You are sitting in a food court with your kids where there are more than 80 outlets. Now you have 4 kids, 1 wife, total 6 members (including you).

As a designer, to provide a concrete solution to a problem I have to do research, brainstorm, and make assumptions about their user behaviour, journeys, problems, different cases and flows so that their experience while ordering a food from food courts gets enhance and uplifted.

As per the given scenario, here are some of the following assumptions :

Quite Large Place: As per the statement its mentioned that it has 80+ Outlets, It can be assumed that the food court cover a large area in terms of sq. ft.

Over Crowded : Since foodcourts have a large footfall, it can safely assumed that the foodcourt will be overcrowded

Mall or University/Other Place : Since most of the foodcourts are in mall, university

Self Service : It has been noticed that foodcourts are self serviceable, which means customers select goods for themselves and pay at a checkout.

Here are some of the problems that I have found out during my research period.

Finding a table : Since food courts have the biggest footfalls, its very hard for the users to find a table.

Long Queues : It has been noticed that the user has to stand in long queues to order food.

Lower discovery of Food Menus : Since the food court offers a lot of brands in one roof, it becomes very hard to discover the food menu’s of each brands. User has to hop to every other kiosks to know what food they offer.

Poor Food Tracking System : It has been noticed that the food courts have a very poor food tracking system. Most of the kiosks show numbers on the LED panel which shows upto 5-6 live orders. If someone misses his/her chance, it may lead to a very bad experience. If user has ordered from multiple restaurants he wont be able to spend quality time with his family/friend. He would be keen to know his order status.

Unable to find Kiosks : Since the food court has over 80+ brands, it may be difficult for the user to find some of the kiosks.

Lowers the decision making : If user visits the foodcourt with large no. of member, it becomes very difficult to decide what to eat since the foodcourt offers alot of brands. Many may agree or disagree with certain food orders.

Limited Payment Method : Some foodcourts doesnt accept the card or other payment methods. User has to make a special food card to buy food. Which again is a problem- Long queues, No refunds, Expiry Date, Security deposit. Reloading of cash card if the card balance is low.

Given that it's 2024 and almost everyone has a smartphone, technology can easily address the challenges mentioned above. This includes seamless table reservations, comparison of vendors, access to deals, and various payment options.

To create a reliable table reservation system for a food court, the app must have real-time information about the status of each table. This includes:

Check-ins: When a customer arrives and selects a table, the app should record their check-in.

Check-outs: When a customer finishes their meal and leaves the table, the app should record their check-out.

Table occupancy: The app should always know whether a table is occupied or vacant. This information can be updated based on check-ins, check-outs, and any other relevant factors.

By tracking this information, the app can provide accurate and up-to-date table availability information to customers, ensuring a smoother dining experience.

By placing a QR code on each table, customers can conveniently access the menu and place orders directly through the app. Once QR is scanned, the table's status is automatically updated to 'occupied.'

A janitor would play a crucial role on checkouts, ensuring tables are clean before use and updates the checkouts of a table by scanning the QR Code.

A customer enters the food court, finds a vacant table, and uses the table's QR code to access the menu. After a scan, the table's availability is marked as 'occupied'

User comes to foodcourt to eat something and sees overcrowd there. A customer uses a mobile app to search for an available table. By leveraging QR code-based ordering, the app can provide real-time updates on table availability, ensuring a seamless dining experience.

In this case, we checks out customers who fail to place an order within 15 minutes. Once this occurs, the table's status will be updated to 'vacant.'"

Since the description says me and my family has gone to the foodcourt and we are total 6 members. So it gets very hard for everyone to see the menu on one phone and order something quick.

Also everyone can have different mood to eat like one kid might wants to have a mcdonalds burger, other may need something from subway and I need something North Indian. So it will get alot chaotic if we pass the phone to everyone to see the menus of different brands. So to tackle this, we have share my cart feature and multiple brand checkout in one go.

Share my cart allows the table owner to share his cart, this means your friends/family would be able to see the menu and can add his favorite dish to your the cart. So the owner takes care of the orders and the payments. In this way, it helps to make decision making faster and effective.