Fresh KDS - A learning curve.

V1 | 2014

In the beginning, there was nothing. Then, some unnamed individual at Fresh Hospitality partnered with Square and crafted a somewhat janky printer emulator (As far as Square is concerned, Square POS is printing paper tickets). Thus, Fresh KDS was born, and there was light (in a kitchen). See the very first iteration below.

 

V2 | 2017

I won’t lie to you, viewer, this next attempt was not necessarily an improvement, and is also, unfortunately, where I entered the picture. This version was a result of hearing ABOUT the phrase “UI/UX,” but having very little idea of what these letters were or what they meant. We’ll breeze past this one, but these were design decisions I made purely on what I (all-knowing designer) thought would be best! You’ll see clunky controls, wanting to show off new branding (who cares), and no rhyme or reason to colors, contrast, etc. To its credit, it is lighter, brighter, and way worse to use in a kitchen.

V3 | 2020 | Enter: A plan.

At this stage in our company and our product, UI/UX was here to stay. We had clear goals we wanted to accomplish with this version based on feedback we had received, whether through spotty user testing or trickle-down comments from our internal restaurants. The goals were as follows:

  • Add functionality via the “actions” button including the ability to “hold” tickets

  • Add the ability to arrange tickets (move forward and backward in the queue)

  • Increase contrast and hopefully legibility in the kitchen

  • Vastly improve the settings

  • Conduct User Tests (still not defined, but happening more)

  • Re-work the static menu to bigger, chunkier buttons that are easy to tap in a busy kitchen

Ps I am a prototype, please click me.

Let’s take a breather.

After we release the above version, a few things became immediately clear:

  • People hated the actions button

  • People HATED the actions button

  • Poeple rrrrrrreally hated the actions button

After some internal discussion, it was clear to see why. It simply took up too much screen space. Many of our customers use small Android tablets, and weren’t interested in the features tucked inside of the actions button. They were furious. Back to the design cave. Below, you can take a look at some of the attempts to succeed in our new mission: Find a new home for the actions button that took up little or, if possible, NO additional screen space. We had a lot of suggestions, but most of them were about long presses, swipes, or others gestures. This is a busy, greasy, glove-wearing kitchen. So a gentle swipe that smears a nice chunk of flung butter across the screen just isn’t an option.

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V4 | Releasing Soon | As we were working out a home for the actions button…

Something else became clear. Screen Space. It was and always should have been, about maximizing that screen real estate. So while we set out to see where the actions button could fit, what we ended up doing was completely overhauling Fresh KDS to make it the best for the user. (Oh, and we did find a solid home for the actions button - right next to the order type that had no business taking up the full width of the ticket!) Other changes included:

  • Removing the border of the ticket: unnecessary and visual clutter

  • Reducing padding of modifiers (those blue things after the menu items, which are the black things): too much causing the tickets to be too wide

  • Remove the solid blue bar across the top: redundant information, visual clutter

  • Move top menu to left, make it collapsable: no need to see these options all the time, more tickets on screen

  • Darken Background even further for more contrast

  • Add visual indicator to close a ticket

  • Change the actions drawer to bigger, kitchen-friendly buttons

  • and more

Ps I am a prototype, please click me.

What’s next?

Next up is continually working to make Fresh KDS even better. Including adding sought-after features at inviting prices such as All Day Counts and Item and Category-Level Routing. We are currently conducting user tests to determine the best way to resolve feedback of our item quantities being too difficult to read.

Ps I am a prototype, please click me.

Onboarding

We have also added a welcome and walk-through screens to give users a sense of guidance and wisdom at the beginning of their journey.

Ps I am a prototype, please click me.