top of page

Sumar Yim 2025

App and Queuing System for Catering group

A leading Hong Kong-based catering group, operating over ten renowned brands across 30 branches, was facing significant challenges during peak hours—long queues were creating negative experiences for both staff and customers.

To tackle this, the group initiated a focus group and conducted a Design Thinking Workshop to deeply understand user pain points and reimagine a better waiting experience, alongside improving the membership program's overall value.

UX Research

Design Thinking Workshop

Role

-

Preview

Year

2021

All Projects

Project Objective

  • Review and enhance the current membership program to deliver greater value and engagement

  • Improve queuing and ticketing system to streamline operations and enhance the overall customer experience.

Empathise: Complete User journey map

  • Introduced personas based on focus group findings.

  • Participants mapped the journey of a typical member and customer, identifying key pain points:

    • Difficulty estimating waiting time.

    • Feelings of impatience during the waiting experience.

    • Poor communication with staff regarding the menu, membership offers, and queuing procedures.

    Additional pain points for specific groups:

    • Elderly customers risked losing physical tickets.

    • Premium members faced cumbersome identity verification processes.

The user research has been divided into two rounds. The first round focuses on reviewing the existing app and the queueing experience in branches, and the second round focuses on understanding the difficulties that front-line staff face.

Overview

  • Questionnaire

  • Activity

  • In-depth Group Interview

Objectives

The questions focus on collecting users' basic information and preferences

Questionnaire

Observe pain points in the user journey when participants draw out the scenarios when queueing and using the app to check the status.

Activity

Understand user’s behaviours and experience in depth. The interview also collects their opinion and expectation during the experience.

In-depth Group Interview

CASE 1: APP AND QUEUEING SYSTEM

The focus group has invited two parties, 8 participants in total, including customers and members of the catering group.

PAIN POINTS

  • Participants found the app’s UI confusing, with excessive information and difficulties locating core features like the menu.

  • Lack of proactive notifications: users had to manually refresh the queue status without being alerted when a table was ready.

Existing App

Participants highlighted three major issues:

  1. Waiting for a table without clear updates.

  2. Complicated ticket verification, especially for premium members.

  3. Rearranging tickets was confusing, and staff support was insufficient.

Queueing

DESIGN THINKING WORKSHOP

The workshop has invited 15 participants, including five different departments including Operation, Business Development, Customer Service, IT, and Marketing.

Define: HMW activity

"How Might We" helps participants to rephrase the problem statements and find the possible solutions for target users.​

​

  • Focus areas identified:

    • Enhancing the queuing experience.

    • Improving communication between front-line staff and customers.

Ideate: Crazy 8

The activity helps participants to generate ideas for solving selected HMW statements.

 

After voting and discussions, ideas were grouped into two systems:

  • Ticket Dispensing System

  • A.I. Robot & Self-Service Membership System

Low-fi Prototype

Participants formed two teams to develop low-fidelity prototypes based on their selected ideas.

​

Ticket dispensing system - Key Features:

  • Displays upcoming ticket order and estimated waiting time

  • Offers coupons to users who wait for extended periods

​

A.I. robot & Self-service membership system - Key Features:

  • Enables users to purchase memberships or log into accounts

  • Supports multiple payment methods (e.g., credit card, Octopus card)

  • Provides menu browsing and pre-ordering capabilities linked to membership offers

SOLUTIONS

Get up to date status

Users can now obtain digital tickets via the app, complete with estimated waiting times and access to special restaurant offers, enhancing transparency and convenience

Self-service system 

Customers can purchase memberships, access benefits, view menus, and pre-order food at self-service kiosks while waiting, creating a more engaging and efficient in-store experience.

bottom of page