Enhancing the In-Venue Experience: Seamless Food Ordering
2024
Project Overview
Cosm is an immersive entertainment venue blending sports, art, and music through visual technology. To elevate the guest experience, we introduced in-seat food and beverage ordering, letting guests scan a QR code, browse the menu, and order without leaving their seat.
As the full-stack designer, I led the end-to-end design process, shaping everything from the user flow to the final visuals. Through iterative critiques, this project became a testing ground for our emerging design system, strengthening our token library, refining typography and color, and shaping reusable components for future use.
My Role
Product Designer
Collaborators
Ethan Paulson, Director of Product Design
Brian Nguyen, Senior UX Designer
Elise Xu, Senior UI Designer
This project set out to elevate the guest experience by addressing a key disruption in the venue: guests had to leave their show or wait for a server to place an order. By collaborating with stakeholders, the head chef, and the design team, I created a seat-side ordering system that let guests order anytime without missing a moment. In addition to streamlining the process, this feature aimed to provide incentives to encourage repeat visits, enhancing overall engagement and ensuring a smoother, more immersive experience for guests.
Defining Core Design Features
Phase 1 focused on establishing the foundations of the in-seat ordering experience through a few key features:
- Creating a clear, intuitive system for food modifications.
- Deciding the optimal point for login versus checkout.
- Integrating a credits & discount system without adding friction.
Alongside feature development, this phase helped formalize our design system in action. I helped expand and document components to ensure alignment with developers and to streamline future iterations.
Iterating Through Critique
Throughout the process, I shared progress in recurring critique sessions to gather feedback and refine the experience. These feedback loops involved presenting multiple design directions across screens, modules, and user journeys. Each round helped clarify interactions, strengthen visual cohesion, and ensure the flow felt intuitive from start to finish.
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01 Streamlining Food Modifications
Guests needed a simple, intuitive way to customize their meals while keeping the ordering flow uninterrupted. Working with designers and stakeholders, I prioritized key features for this phase and defined four selection types:
- Single select for straightforward choices.
- Modifications showing included ingredients that could be adjusted.
- Substitutions allowing users to swap main ingredients.
- Add-ons for extras that update the final price.
Defining these categories created a consistent framework for customization, ensuring the experience felt flexible yet effortless.
02 Finding the Flow for Login vs. Guest Checkout
To determine the best placement for login, I mapped the full user flow to understand where it would feel most natural. Because guests were already scanning a QR code to begin, we reduced friction by giving immediate access to the menu.
Users could browse, select items, and review their order before encountering a login prompt. Placing it after order review made login feel like a natural step in checkout rather than an interruption to the experience.
03 Optimizing Discounts & Credits
This phase introduced venue-specific credits and promo codes to encourage repeat visits and reward returning fans. Credits were tied to user accounts and appeared after login, while promo codes could be manually applied during checkout.
I designed a dynamic credits module that displayed only the available balance for the logged-in user. The promo code input was integrated directly into the checkout flow, ensuring both options appeared at the right time without interrupting the experience.
Bringing the Chef's Vision to Life
A core part of this project was making sure the digital menu carried the same care and personality as the physical one. I partnered closely with Chef Adam to bring his vision into an intuitive, visually rich mobile experience that felt authentic to the venue’s dining identity.
- Highlighted featured dishes to showcase popular and signature menu items.
- Made allergy and dietary details visible without overwhelming the interface.
- Used imagery to capture Cosm's dining atmosphere and entice exploration.
This collaboration ensured the menu experience felt cohesive, inviting, and reflective of the creativity behind every dish.
By the end of this project, I delivered a food and beverage ordering experience that felt like a natural extension of Cosm’s immersive environment.
The integration of the new design system required balancing immediate project needs with long-term scalability. Through thoughtful documentation and collaboration, the foundation we built now supports future features and ensures consistency across new initiatives.
Looking ahead, the experience will continue to evolve with new features designed to bring more personalization and engagement to the platform:
- Order status updates to let users track their food in real time.
- Favorites for quick reordering of preferred items.
- User reviews and ratings to encourage feedback and menu refinement.
These additions will enrich the overall user journey by creating deeper, more personal interactions. As the project grows, they’ll build on the strong foundation already in place, further elevating the mobile web experience.