Menuet

Menuet
Bridging Language Barriers for International Travelers When Dining

MenuetBridging Language Barriers for International Travelers When Dining

CONTEXT

Our dining experience in daily life inspired us to do this side project. As international students who are less familiar with the foreign language, my teammate and I found difficulties understanding restaurant menus, which led to what we ordered not being what we expected. We felt this would be an interesting problem to solve, so we started this project.

MY ROLE

Researcher
UX/UI Designer
Prototype Maker

TEAM OF 2

Minjun Chen
Will Wang

TOOLS

Sketch
Principle
Xcode-Swift

DURATION

3 Months

THE CHALLENGE

How might we help international travelers make food decisions when they experience language barriers with menus and waiters?

Considering Food Allergies and Dietary Restrictions

SOLUTION

Menuet, a location-based app that helps international travelers explore local food and provides translated menus based on the individual food profile when dining at foreign restaurants.

FEATURE 1

Discovering Local Food Nearby

Allowing travelers to explore restaurants based on local dishes in their current locations.

FEATURE 2

Indicating Food Allergies and Dietary Restrictions on Menu

Informing travelers of food allergies and dietary restrictions on the menus and dish descriptions, based on their food profiles created during the onboarding.

FEATURE 3

Visualizing Ingredients and Portion Size in Augmented Reality

Showing dishes through augmented reality view on local dishes in their current locations. Showing dishes through augmented reality view to help travelers see the ingredients and know the portion size.

FEATURE 4

Translating Menu and Order Request

Translating local menus into travelers' languages to help them understand the menus. Translating travelers' order requests into local languages to help them communicate with waiters.

Why Menuet?

1. Translation tools cannot help travelers fully understand the dishes merely by text-based translations when travelers encounter unusual or even weird dish names. Menuet works with local restaurants to provide appropriate translations and food images from menus.
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2. Existing apps mainly cover the food journey of discovering and planning, rather than the dining experience. Menuet focuses on improving the dining experience at the restaurant.
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3. It takes efforts to switch between food apps and translation tools to make decision and communicate with waiters when it comes to language barriers. Menuet provides translated menu and order request altogether to streamline the tasks of food ordering.

FEATURE 1

Discovering Local
Food Nearby

Allowing travelers to explore restaurants based
on local dishes in their current locations.

FEATURE 2

Indicating Food Allergies and Dietary Restrictions on Menu

Informing travelers of food allergies and dietary restrictions on the menus and dish descriptions, based on their food profiles created during the onboarding.

FEATURE 3

Visualizing Ingredients and Portion Size in Augmented Reality

Showing dishes through augmented reality view on local dishes in their current locations.
Showing dishes through augmented reality view to help travelers see the ingredients and know the portion size.

FEATURE 4

Translating Menu
and Order Request

Translating local menus into travelers' languages to help them understand the menus. Translating travelers' order requests into local languages to help them communicate with waiters.

Why Menuet?

Research Summary

We conducted 37 semi-structured interviews and 2 contextual inquiries to narrow down our focus to international travelers’ dining experiences. We learned travelers' decision-making patterns and travel trends through secondary research. From competitive analysis, we discovered the opportunity to build a product that could help international travelers understand local menus and order food when dining in unfamiliar settings. Here are the actionable insights we concluded from research:

Here are actionable insights we concluded from 37 semi-structured interviews, 2 contextual inquiries, secondary research and competitive analysis:

Travelers seek out local specialities and authenticity.

Text-based menus don’t necessarily help travelers make a decision, especially when dining in situations without familiar languages and typical food cultures.

Travelers feel included when dietary restrictions, food allergies, and cultural and religious needs are being considered.

Travelers rely on local opinions and recommendations to guide their decision making.

Modern technology helps travelers better experience local cultures, but it cannot completely replace the role local people play in offering authentic local knowledge and human interaction.

Travelers seek out local specialities and authenticity.

Text-based menus don’t necessarily help travelers make a decision, especially when dining in situations without familiar languages and typical food cultures.

Travelers feel included when dietary restrictions, food allergies, and cultural and religious needs are being considered.

Travelers rely on local opinions and recommendations to guide their decision making.

Modern technology helps travelers better experience local cultures, but it cannot completely replace the role local people play in offering authentic local knowledge and human interaction.

STORYBOARD

Pain points of international travelers when dining:
1. Can’t understand the menus because of the language barriers.
2. Not sure if ingredients contain allergens or dietary restrictions.
3. No idea about the portion sizes of dishes.
4. Hard to communicate with the waiter.

For conveying the pain points of international travelers when dining:
1. Can’t understand the menus because of the language barriers.
2. Not sure if ingredients contain allergens or dietary restrictions.
3. No idea about the portion sizes of dishes.
4. Hard to communicate with the waiter.

We created a storyboard to inform us of those pain points through the story of Jessica, a Seattle-based magazine editor, who explores the local food during her travel to China.

IDEATION

We generated ideas around each pain point and need of international travelers. We referred back to the insights from the competitive analysis about the information architecture of the menu that could help travelers make food decisions more efficiently.
See ideation map in full resolution >

CONCEPT VALIDATION

We created a set of rubrics as a reality filter to evaluate and narrow down concepts.

PAPER PROTOTYPE

Testing Feasibility of the Concepts

We did four paper prototype tests to:
1. Test the feasibility of our initial concepts.
2. Test whether participants understand the main user flows.
3. Get constructive advice to build the mid-fi prototype.

Feedback:
1. Too much effort required for the onboarding.
2. Need to consider the empty states and off-location situations.
3. A gap between the food profile input and its indication on menus.
4. Key features were not clear because of the complicated user flows.
5. The interface function of helping communicate with waiters was mistaken to be a self check-out function.

Based on the feedback, we made improvements into wireframes. Here are some notable changes:

DESIGN ITERATIONS

We did usability tests on the high fidelity UI with 5 participants and iterated the design based on the feedback and previous research. Here are two flows that we struggled with a lot but eventually reached the solutions through iterations:

Explore Section

This section serves the purpose of covering travelers' journeys when they are using this app outside of restaurants. Based on research insights 1 and 4, travelers want to experience the local specialties, so we designed this section as a tool for travelers to explore the local food. From the interviews, we found that travelers' food decisions depend on the food itself rather than the restaurants. Hence, we made the section start with providing local food information instead of local restaurants.

Order List and Translation

This section contains our main features. The Order List is intended to let travelers add the dishes which they want to order, and translate their choices into the local languages. Then, travelers can show the translated order information to the waiters for ordering.

USER FLOWS

Explore Section

Eat Section

OUTCOME - BUSINESS VALIDATION

We presented Menuet to restaurant owners and entrepreneurs. They were very interested and thought Menuet could help grow their business on international customers. The business validation revealed the need for restaurant owners to gather business analytics and manage menu information on Menuet, which intrigued me to create a paired web app for restaurant owners.

Click below to see the project

Menuet Dashboard

Web App Design

Reflection

1. Be sure to support design decisions with research. :)
2. Think of the big picture but stay focused on MVP features.
3. Task flows should require minimal actions from users.
4. Provide enough predictability and trust on interfaces for users.
5. Consider possible outcomes and costs from users' every action.
6. Don’t be afraid to make big changes on the final design, as long as it’s necessary!

Special thanks to all the contributors:
participants, industry professionals, advisors, restaurant owners,
proofreaders, and my awesome teammate.