Overview
Coffee Shop employees, especially new ones, are put into a unique and stressful position of having to juggle multiple orders at the same time, learn new skills and techniques, and fill orders accurately and quickly. We found through our research that this results in a high turn-over rate for employees. In order to reduce this occurrence, as well as assist coffee shops in processing their orders with a smoother system, we have created Kaya, a voice user interface that aids coffee shop training and drink management.
Goals & Challenges
We decided that there was rich opportunity in both expediting the ordering process, in order to cut down on lines and free up the cashier to perform other skilled job duties they are trained in but are otherwise unable to do because they are tied down to taking orders. Many times in the research and observation process, we saw situations where rushed and stressed coffee shop cashiers were left to run back and forth between helping their busy co-workers and tending to growing or unending lines.
Video Sketch of User Experience
language flows
Because voice user interfaces are a more open ended interaction, the system has to have cues for basics like questions and starting and stopping specific requests.
Mapping the basic flow
The way we began to institute the flow for the Kaya VUI was based on first understanding the logic of how customers order coffee drinks and then followed by how employees react to those order. Furthermore we later split this up into the type or employee engaging with the VUI. Going from the experienced employee to the the more novice and recently hired new employee. These distinctions were created to make sure that the interface could not only scale but respond to various scenarios, which ultimately is what you would want from a responsive assistant tool.
New user flow
The new user flow accounts for the process by which a new employee begin to interact with the voice user interface. Key components of this flow, is capturing mechanism for the system to detect, hesitation, be able to answer questions and most importantly provide an introduction and foundation for how things should be operated.
Returning user flow
The returning user flow accounts for the processes by which a experienced employee interacts with the voice user interface. This particular flow captures the needs of that individual, and these include things like, beverage tracking and sorting, as well as clarity about past order placed by users in order to not make mistakes.