Without doubt the shift towards digital ordering in the Food & Beverages industry is happening for obvious reasons. Online food-delivery platforms, so-called “aggregators” and “new delivery” offer a sheer endless variety of on-demand meals, allowing customers to order with a single tap on their mobile phone—maximum convenience. Though there are drawbacks for the restaurants. Besides paying commission fees of 20-35% they are not able to engage customer relationships, which transforms them basically into production kitchens without a chance to create their own brand.

Without doubt the shift towards digital ordering in the Food & Beverages industry is happening for obvious reasons. Online food-delivery platforms, so-called “aggregators” and “new delivery” offer a sheer endless variety of on-demand meals, allowing customers to order with a single tap on their mobile phone—maximum convenience. Though there are drawbacks for the restaurants. Besides paying commission fees of 20-35% they are not able to engage customer relationships, which transforms them basically into production kitchens without a chance to create their own brand.

Seeing an opportunity within that market the Singapore-based start-up Cilantro approached us in late 2015 with the ambition to create a solution which enables restaurants to grow an online business independently, manage their orders and delivery couriers as well as engage customer relationships and loyalty programs. During the following months we went through the challenge to create the MPV for a multi-platform system. One of the biggest learnings for me during that project was how difficult it actually is to align the client, partners and the team on an actual MPV. Defining the 20% of features which will be used 80% of the time—aka orbiting the Pareto universe.

Seeing an opportunity within that market the Singapore-based start-up Cilantro approached us in late 2015 with the ambition to create a solution which enables restaurants to grow an online business independently, manage their orders and delivery couriers as well as engage customer relationships and loyalty programs. During the following months we went through the challenge to create the MPV for a multi-platform system. One of the biggest learnings for me during that project was how difficult it actually is to align the client, partners and the team on an actual MPV. Defining the 20% of features which will be used 80% of the time—aka orbiting the Pareto universe.

After several iterations of archetypes, context scenarios and user experience flows we spent a substantial amount of the project time with the classical rapid prototyping approach—Prototype, Review, Refine & Repeat—and finding smarter ways to share and communicate these created concepts with stakeholders and the team located across 2 different time zones in Singapore and Zurich. The result was a service consisting of 3 interconnected platforms. An end customer facing Web Store, the Order Management which serves restaurant staff to manage incoming orders and delivery couriers, and a back-end admin panel called Menu Management which enables restaurant owners to customise their Web Store as well as manage menus, outlets and staff.

After several iterations of archetypes, context scenarios and user experience flows we spent a substantial amount of the project time with the classical rapid prototyping approach—Prototype, Review, Refine & Repeat—and finding smarter ways to share and communicate these created concepts with stakeholders and the team located across 2 different time zones in Singapore and Zurich. The result was a service consisting of 3 interconnected platforms. An end customer facing Web Store, the Order Management which serves restaurant staff to manage incoming orders and delivery couriers, and a back-end admin panel called Menu Management which enables restaurant owners to customise their Web Store as well as manage menus, outlets and staff.

My specific part in that project was the full UX design of the mobile responsive Web Store. Besides the complexity of numerous menu items, variations and modifier options a substantial part of the design process was to simplify the delivery and pick-up module. The fact that we designed all 3 platforms in parallel (my counterpart Christian Behrens was responsible for the Order and Menu Management) resulted definitely in a challenge of aligning features and requirements.

My specific part in that project was the full UX design of the mobile responsive Web Store. Besides the complexity of numerous menu items, variations and modifier options a substantial part of the design process was to simplify the delivery and pick-up module. The fact that we designed all 3 platforms in parallel (my counterpart Christian Behrens was responsible for the Order and Menu Management) resulted definitely in a challenge of aligning features and requirements.

© 2020 Klaus R. Zimmermann. All rights reserved.

© 2020 Klaus R. Zimmermann.
All rights reserved.