Pizza Hut

1991-1992
NCR Retail - Human Factors
Taking a pizza order was difficult since the key-based system required information to be entered in a very specific sequence not followed by customers, of course. Mistakes or changes forced cashiers to basically re-enter everything. Transaction times were high and error-prone. I was part of a small team and a key contributor throughout the entire project from proposal to final presentations. In following a traditional UCD approach, we delivered a superior design tailored to fit cashier tasks and customer behavior.

GOALS:

  • Reduce training time, increase order accuracy and transaction speed

ACTIONS:

  • Researched user tasks & consumer ordering behavior; benchmarked user activities
  • Analyzed sales data to determine customer ordering patterns
  • Conducted information architecture and interaction design
  • Prototyped and refined designs based on user-testing
  • Invented many new touch screen UI widgets
  • Documented UI design guide

RESULTS:

  • Delivered a fully interactive, fully functional touch screen GUI prototype
  • Invented industry-first features to increase user efficiency and effectiveness (separate checks, predictive payments, illustrated change due, tri-function buttons, pizza read-back, etc.)
  • Cut point-of-sale training in half
  • Increased order accuracy by 70%
  • Increased throughput by 10%-experts, 30%-novice
  • Sales tied our solution to hardware sales and Pizza Hut did not buy it
  • Pizza Hut used our prototype as their vision and requirements for 4 straight years
  • NCR software team productized touch screen UI widgets: NICE – Natural Interface for Controlled Environments
  • Success led to similar original touch and key-based GUI design projects for numerous clients such as Delta Air Lines, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, US Postal Service, Wal*Mart, and Albertsons