CS 160 – Group 1

Andrei Boutyline / Ha Nguyen,

Neetin Gulati / Randy Shoopman

WAITer: Waiter Assistive Information Technology

  1. Problem or Idea
  • Problem
  • As restaurants become increasingly busy, waiters and waitresses are finding themselves with having to reduce the level of customer service in order to balance their higher volume of customers. In addition, we find that there are many inefficiencies involved with the standard order-taking processes. We believe it is time to replace the archaic use of paper and pencil with the digital technologies that are currently available.
  • Proposal
  • We propose a PDA application that will automate many tasks that waiters and waitresses must perform.
  • Hint at proposed solution
  1. To increase the efficiency of waiters/waitresses
  2. To reduce waiters’/waitress’ stress levels by helping them become more organized
  3. To improve the quality of restaurant services; thus, increasing customer satisfaction
  4. To provide a more secure payment process
  5. To reduce restaurant’s operational expenses by increasing customer throughput (since customers can be serviced more efficiently)
  1. Analysis of Problem
  • Negative aspects of current situations
  • waiters and waitresses handwrite orders and walk the orders to the kitchen
  • servers must make constant trips to the kitchen in order to check the status of an order
  • server handwriting can be misinterpreted by kitchen staff
  • orders can be misplaced or overlooked by kitchen staff
  • servers become stressed due to high level of multitasking due to having to simultaneously serve multiple customers
  • credit cards are taken away from customers view, creating a potential security hazard
  • customers often have to wait long periods before being fed due to the above inefficiencies
  • Positive aspects that may be beneficial to retain
  • servers are able to give suggestions and personal opinions about menu items
  • servers provide personal contact with the customer
  • servers are able to customize orders
  • customers are given multiple payment options
  1. Suggested Improvements : the following list of PDA application features will greatly reduce the inefficiencies describe above
  • Our GUI will provide a mapping of all the restaurant tables.
  • By clicking on a specific table that a waiter/waitress is currently servicing, the server can send an order to the kitchen wirelessly.
  • Orders will be placed by clicking on food items displayed on a menu that is integrated into the PDA application
  • If a menu item becomes unavailable, the menu item will become grayed-out to indicate its unavailability to the waiter.
  • The server will be able to access nutritional information for items on the menu.
  • The application will have a wireless feature that will make updating the menu simple and easy in order to accommodate restaurants that have daily specials.
  • The GUI table representation (perhaps a simple square) will be color-coded to indicate the status of the table’s order. (i.e. When it becomes green, the server will know that the order is ready.)
  • When a certain time interval has passed in which a server has not visited a table, the GUI representation of that table will blink in order to remind the server to check on that table.
  • Our GUI will have the capability to process a credit card payment at the table. The PDA will have a magnetic credit card reader attached in some manner and will be able to wirelessly receive credit authorization. Our GUI will support this feature by having a print option that will print out a detailed receipt.
  • Our GUI will have a notepad feature, which allows servers to make personal notes as well send notes to the kitchen in order to place customized orders.
  1. Experiment – we would like to evaluate if our device solves the problems we listed above by asking restaurant staff to use our application and provide us with feedback
  • Independent Variables
  • The interface design (i.e. will waiters like the GUI table representation on the bottom)
  • Age and experience of staff
  • Customer volume
  • Time of day
  • Type of restaurant / atmosphere
  • staff’s level of comfort / opinion of technology
  • Dependent Variables
  • Customer throughput
  • Satisfaction of all parties (customers, servers, kitchen staff, management)
  • Reduction in operational costs
  • Participants
  • Customers, servers, and staff of all ages and experience
  • non-English environments (i.e. ethnic restaurants where English is not the main language).