Nitecapp

Hospitality Innovation Labs (HIL) is a startup building a management system for hospitality businesses. HIL aims to empower employees by providing the tool to uplevel their quality of service.

My role was to define and design the product from the ground up.
Problem

Status Quo

Traditional management systems in the hospitality industry are outdated.

‍Staff onboarding in restaurants and bars is inconsistent, unscalable, and costly. Employees feel unvalued and expendable, putting the national average turnover rate at 75%. The lack of investment and support for staff and training makes them unmotivated at work.
Research

The Nooks and Crannies

HIL aims to provide structure and consistent, scalable staff training that saves time and cost.

We started by laying a strong foundation with thorough research.
Ideation

How Might We..?

From our research, we found that we must:
‍
  • Deconstruct & Streamline training.
    ..to increase retention & save cost. Users quickly lost interest when learning felt daunting and tasked.
  • Gamify Learning. Uplevel teamwork and staff morale.
    Acknowledgement, rewards, and a team that "feels like family" were common in high-retention restaurants.
  • Give managers tools & access.
    Digitize and streamline tools that managers are already using when onboarding and maintaining staff.
1/3

How might we motivate training?

Solution #1
Sales & data-driven learning + Gamification drives the extrinsic motivation of users to uplevel their quality of service and upselling skills, driving up revenue.
Screen capture of Sales-driven learning on Desktop + Physical rewards and Leaderboards on Mobile
Sales-driven learning + Physical rewards
Solution #2
Our research revealed that "being in a team that feels like family" increased retention by ~40%, which significantly reduces turnover costs.
‍
Team-centric labeling welcomes onboarding staff. A short, professional bio acts as an icebreaker.
2/3

How might we reduce onboarding costs?

Solution #1
Condensing and streamlining training with a template streamlines and guarantees the same standard of service across & within different branches.
Solution #2
Product knowledge is key. Repetition prevents "let me go check with the kitchen."
Flashcards
Prototype
Mobile screen capture of the flashcards module
Whenever, wherever. Including pre-shift and your own time.
3/3

How might we create a system?

Solution #1
Address user needs while maintaining clear hierarchy. Accommodate the different user journeys of managers and staff.
Manager
Staff
Manager - side IA: Managers are put in charge, with access to the data.
Managers are put in charge, with access to real-time data.
Staff - side IA
Solution #2
Say goodbye to multiple groupchats. Whiteboard and group notifications facilitate effective information dissemination.
Communication within the team: Mobile screen capture of Information disemmination: Notifications feature for specific groups and Whiteboard feature for the whole team.
Notifications for specific groups. Whiteboard for the whole team.
Brand & UI

Design System

We built a beautiful, consistent, and responsive design system that voices luxury across all devices. Our atomic, reusable components library will adapt to expanding needs of our clients for years to come.
Testing

Measures

We prototyped the end-to-end experience, which allowed us to acquire funding. Our web platform is currently being rolled out. Our success measures, set in accordance with industry standards, include:
Task Success Rate
of over 85%, from onboarding to completion of a lesson.
Hours spent outside of core curriculum
overtime, to measure the stickiness of the platform.
% of daily active users
over all new users, to measure initial engagement.
The End

Reflection

Laying the foundation for Nitecapp was an extraordinary learning experience. Interviewing dozens of stakeholders and conducting extensive research gave me confidence along the journey. I was able to gain a deep understanding of psychology of learning.

I’ve learned to document and communicate effectively (if it’s not written down, it’s lost). I've come to realize that stand-up meetings, brief updates, and sharing of notes are what really keep everyone on the same page.

The next important step I look forward to taking is in integrating Toast POS system and designing features leveraging POS data. I will be diving deep into the sales dashboard, which will develop into the #1 performance motivator and sales insight tool in the industry.
More Works
Ticketmaster
Guide AR
Joke