Design Roost's first ordering kiosk

Overview

This project presents my ability to rally the troops, find resources where I can get them, and have those UX resources jump in and do their best work, all while delivering on time.

Business problem

The objective

Use labor resources for the most critical tasks rather than taking orders, and present an upsell opportunity with every transaction.

Leadership

My contribution

• Brought kiosk knowledge from a previous employer to the team.
• Made revisions during the design process and kept the ball rolling.
• Hired Samia Gilani to fill the vacant Restaurant UX Designer role.
• Gave specific instructions for the upsell experience.

Collaboration

The team

Research

What we learned

• We visited a lot of other restaurant kiosks, took photos of the ordering process, and met back at headquarters to synthesize our findings.
• Food imagery is key; every decision we made kept the food photos the most prominent element on the screen.
• Through my previous experience, I had first-hand knowledge that having more single-choice steps in the process increased the speed of ordering at the kiosk.
• We learned a lot about how to visually highlight made choices, and the liberal use of step indicators throughout.

Decisions

Key design decisions

1. 01

   Keep the framework simple

   We kept it simple for speed and understanding: home, category, item, cart.

2. 02

   Food photography leads

   Every decision kept the food photos the most prominent element on the screen.

3. 03

   An upsell that looks empty

   It had to absolutely be and look as empty as possible. What looks like empty space makes choosing and selecting items as clear as possible.

Outcome

The results

As of spring 2026, we saw an increase in basket size of over 40% and a completion rate of 99%, against an industry standard of 92%.