Figure KDS - Helping restaurants replace paper tickets with a digital kitchen workflow.
Role
UX/UI Designer
Timeline
4 Months
Teams
Founders | Engineering | Restaurant Owners
Outcome
Launched MVP used by restaurants and validated through customer feedback.
Business Problem
Restaurants often rely on paper tickets or outdated systems, making it difficult to manage orders efficiently during busy service. Our goal was to design a flexible kitchen display system that streamlined operations across different restaurant workflows.
Challenge
We needed to design a kitchen display system that could support different restaurant workflows while remaining simple enough for kitchen staff to learn quickly during high-pressure service.
Discovery
Evaluated competitors - Toast and TouchBistro to understand industry standards, identify usability gaps, and uncover opportunities to create a more flexible and customizable kitchen workflow.
Competitor research takeaways-
Toast POS
+ Mature Ecosystem
+ Strong reporting
- Limited customization
Touchbistro
+ Simple onboarding
+ Familiar workflows
- Less flexible layouts
Why this matters: Every restaurant operates differently so customization became a primary principle.​
Wireframing / Prototyping
I interviewed restaurant owners and chefs to understand how orders flowed through the kitchen. Their feedback shaped the layout, prioritization, and interactions before moving into high-fidelity designs.
Design Decisions
I interviewed restaurant owners and chefs to understand how orders flowed through the kitchen. Their feedback shaped the layout, prioritization, and interactions before moving into high-fidelity designs.
Challenge 1: Kitchen staff needed to process orders quickly during busy service.
Decision: Designed a card-based layout with clear visual hierarchy.
Why: Reduced scanning time and made order status easier to identify at a glance.
Challenge 2: Kitchen staff needed to understand order priority
Decision: Used color, status indicators, and progressive disclosure to communicate ticket states.
Why: Improved readability and helped staff prioritize tasks during peak hours.
Challenge 3: Every restaurant manages orders differently.
Decision: Built a customizable workflow with flexible ticket organization.
Why: Allowed the system to adapt to different restaurant operations without changing the core experience.
The Process - I partnered with stakeholders throughout an iterative design process to turn user insights and business goals into a scalable solution.
Understand the Business Goals
Defined the product vision with stakeholders and aligned on business goals, user needs, and success metrics before exploring solutions.
Research & Discovery
Interviewed restaurant owners and chefs, observed existing workflows, and analyzed competitors to uncover pain points and opportunities.
Define Design Decision
Synthesized research into key product requirements and prioritized features that balanced operational efficiency with ease of use.
Explore Solutions
Created low-fidelity wireframes to quickly test layouts, navigation, and ticket management workflows with stakeholders.
Refine Experience
Developed interactive prototypes and iterated based on user feedback to improve usability, information hierarchy, and task efficiency.
Deliver & Launch
Collaborated closely with engineering to ensure the final product met both technical requirements and the original design intent.
Measure Success
Gathered feedback from restaurant staff after launch to validate design decisions and identify opportunities for future improvements.
Results - The project successfully launched as an MVP, providing restaurants with a modern, customizable kitchen display system that streamlined order management and validated the product vision through real-world use and customer feedback.
Successfully launched the MVP for real restaurant use.
Digitized kitchen workflows within an intuitive interface.
Validated the product through stakeholder and customer feedback.
Built scalable foundation for future enhancements.
Reflection- This case study showcases how research, collaboration, and iterative design helped create a flexible kitchen display system that streamlined restaurant operations and improved usability.
What surprised me -
I was surprised by how much kitchen workflows varied across restaurants. Designing for flexibility proved just as important as designing for usability.
Tradeoffs -
The biggest tradeoff was balancing customization with simplicity. We wanted to support different workflows without making the interface overwhelming for kitchen staff.
What I would improve -
With more time, I'd conduct additional usability testing after launch to validate the workflow and identify opportunities to further streamline high-volume kitchen operations.
What I learned -
This project reinforced that successful product design starts with understanding users' workflows, not just their interface needs. Close collaboration with stakeholders and iterative feedback were essential to building a solution that worked in real-world environments.
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