Woflow
Concepting a new tool to help restauranteurs digitally manage their menus and share them with food delivery companies.
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Woflow is an early stage startup whose key offering is a menu transcription tool that transcribes images of restaurant menus into structured data. Food delivery companies use the existing tool to populate their menu database more quickly and accurately than by manual input, saving them time and money.
The founders approached my team to simplify the experience for a new customer base: fast casual restaurant owners/general managers (GMs). We concluded that a different product is needed to better fit their needs: a menu management tool. It empowers GMs to claim existing menu data online, upload new menus to be digitized, modify content in one place, and share it with food delivery companies as they wish.
Research
Observing the responsibilities of GMs, we found that they have an extremely busy schedule. We did a comparative analysis of the varying technologies they interface with. This includes a point-of-sale (POS) system for transactions, a reservation system for restaurant bookings, menu design software, business listing management services, and a separate tablet device for every food delivery company they partner with. How might all of these needs be addressed through one system?
An easy answer would be to incorporate everything within the POS system, but it is also high risk and costly to implement due to hardware requirements. Giving restauranteurs the existing menu transcription tool doesn’t make sense because its benefits do not outweigh the cost of adopting it (2 weeks of training). What can Woflow offer right now, that is low risk and provides the most value?
1) Food Delivery Company pays Woflow to use their menu transcription tool
2) Food Delivery Company hires contractors to transcribe menus for their database via Woflow
3) Restaurants are left out of the equation
1) Restaurant uses Woflow menu management tool at no cost to claim existing menus and manage new menus online
2) Food Delivery Company pays Woflow to access the most up-to-date and accurate menus directly from the source
3) Woflow offers menu transcription to restaurant free of charge and hires contractors to do the work
Design
User Flows
Comparing the flow of the existing tool with that of the new tool, food delivery companies and restauranteurs have different needs. An important consideration was to delay registration so that restauranteurs can get a glimpse of the tool before signing up. Here are some benefits the new menu management tool offers restaurants:
- Ownership of menu is restored to restaurants and edits occur in one place
- Restaurant distributes menus to food delivery companies of their choosing
- Menus are up-to-date and accurate because they come directly from the restaurant
- Restauranteurs have access to menu transcription services without needing training
Wireframes
Now that we had a plan for how the menu management tool would work, our team conducted a Crazy 8’s sketching session to ideate how it would look like. The design went through multiple iterations during this phase.
Results
In addition to designing a new tool, my team team redesigned the brand to create an identity for Woflow that restauranteurs would find trustworthy, approachable, and professional. We also established a design system to create a cohesive look that the founders could leverage in updating the look of the existing tool.