Sevice Overview
There are numerous sustainability reports which says that Quick-service restaurants (QSRs) are some of the most energy-intensive buildings in the US.
Energy costs typically account for 3-6% of a restaurant’s total expenses. That is, on average, a restaurant can spend anywhere from $2,000 to $6,000 per month on energy costs.
System Workflow
Research Goals
How might we help District Managers of a QSR Restaurant (multi-site user) to achieve operational excellence by controlling and monitoring their equipments?
Process
UX Research and Analysis
Background
Energybox’s Digital Platform provides Strategic, Analytical and Operational data driven information to enterprises. The system has various stakeholders so it is broken down to provide data based on user needs.
Digital Dashboard and mobile app helps customers to:
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Remotely Monitor multiple facilities/equipment performance
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Analyse Operational data through detailed visualisation graphs,Generate automated reports,
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Control & optimise equipment performance based on Standard operating procedure (SOP)
Interview and Field Study
User Interview: Interviewed 4 District Managers of Quick Service Restaurant; 7 Staffs of QSR & C-Store; 2 Owner of a Franchise Restaurant. Some interviews have been conducted in person and some remotely.
Customer Site Visit: I have spent 15 days observing and talking to QSR staff on-site to learn about their lifestyle, environment, motivations, frustrations, etc. My objective was to find opportunities
Affinity Diagram
Research Findings
District Managers are constantly fighting fires by looking after the day-to-day operations of multiple sites. Site Managers were frustrated about the manual temperature checks 3 times a day, unexpected equipment failures, customer complaints products losses, etc. At the same time, they are skeptical about using the Energybox system in their facilities as they were comfortable with existing manual processes, and portraits lacked the interest in changing the way of work and their mindset to accept an AI-driven system to guide them in a job which they have mastered over the years.
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UX Challenge
As a UX designer, I could empathize with them and understand their fear and lack of trust in the Energybox system and its data-driven analysis. So it became all the more important for me to develop confidence, transparency, sense of accomplishment, etc. which will motivate and encourage them to make Energybox Platform a part of their daily lives.
Key User Pain Points
User Personas
I have created personas of users based on information gathered by detailed interviews with QSR Managers. I returned to these personas throughout my project to guide my design decisions and priorities.
UX Design
Project Goals
While Business goals were mainly focused on sustainability bu reducing energy wastage in customer sites, I had a deeper vision of what users wanted and I was able to identify where the two of them aligned.
User Journey
Emotional Support Principle
User Stories
These user stories were created to understand different contexts in which users would use Energybox system and to understand their motivation and desired outcome.
Dynamic Architecture of the Platform
We conducting qualitative research with wireframes through observation to study the impact on user interaction.
User Flow
it was quite straightforward to build up task flows in the Dashboard. What I did was to expand in depth and explored features.
UI Design
The dashboard communicates the most important information for the user, on a simple, easy-to-understand screen. They are structured to reflect a logical information hierarchy, providing the user with ways to drill down into the data when necessary.
Detailed Analytics & Automated Reports
Organization Level analysis of Site Performance and Energy Consumption over a period of time.
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Users can benchmark sites for monitoring purposes
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Receive priority notification (In Mobile App) if operational issues get recorded in that particular site.
Operational Dashboard
Site Level users (General Managers) to monitor Equipment Performance in real-time.
Real-Time Equipment Monitoring
Data Visualisation for equipment performance: The platform has extensively used time-series-data for graphs and charts. The visualisation gets updated every 10 seconds.
Performance Reports
Equipment Monitoring & Energy Consumption Analysis
Data Visualisation for Equipment Performance: The platform has extensively used time-series-data for graphs and charts. The visualisation gets updated every 10 seconds.
Usability Testing
After developing our digital solution we installed our sensors and devices in 30 Sites of an Enterprise Organisation and gave them 6 months free access to our digital platform/app and kiosk extensively and gave us detailed feedback.
User Feedback
Real-Time Temperature Check-in of Equipments in mobile.
App saved 45mins of Crew or else they had to record the temperature of the equipment at different times of the day.
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Temperature Compliance Report helped General Managers to detect and manage humidity violations in their expensive wine storage area.
Site received Wine Storage Management Systems Certification by the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency with our data.​
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Lighting Control via mobile helped District Managers to detect cases where lights were on during non-operating hours.​
This helped sites to reduce energy consumption by 20% in a year.
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HVAC Temperatures Monitoring helped district managers to make sure equipment are working as per SOP.
Creating Operational Simplicity with Automation
In this article we are discussing 3 key aspects of the dashboard design that are primary contributors for making the platform intuitive, user friendly and comprehensive to the users.
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Simplification by Data Visualisation
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Emphasis on Data Accessibility
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Easy Navigation Across the Platform
