SERVAR
PROJECT TYPE: SPONSOR: COLLABORATORS:
YEAR:
Competition Immersive Insiders Valerie Tse, Leo Huang, Bohan Lang 2025
Current applications for AR in dining focus on the food; however, food only accounts for half of the restaurant experience. The atmosphere, concept, and service of a restaurant is what differentiates a common eatery from a beloved dining spot. Accordingly, our project seeks to integrate AR into the world of dining with a specific focus on the median between food and customer: the service staff. By equipping servers and bartenders with AR technology, we can maximize the restaurant customer experience, reduce operational costs, and build a new pathway for small business owners to collect data and make better business-growing decisions.
HOW WE BUILT IT
We began this project by doing research on current and future trends within the restaurant industry. It was shown that more and more restaurants ─predominantly fine dining establishments with larger budgets─ were investing in customer analytics to tailor menus, develop marketing and adjust their in-house service strategies. Post-covid, many restaurants also implemented enhanced hygiene practices and recommitted themselves to ensuring dietary and allergy restrictions are catered to effectively. Lastly, we noted all restaurants ─regardless of cuisine, size or rank─ experience high server turnover rates which lead to inconsistent service quality and increased training costs.
Our research helped us identify problems within this field. Next, we began storyboarding to develop a narrative that would showcase how, where and when our product would address these problems. Once our storyboard was finalized, we began developing UI wireframes in Figma for each storyboard instance. Our team drew inspiration for our UI design from multiple restaurant management and POS system companies, including Toast, Open Table, and TouchBistro.
Simultaneously, we organized a cast and crew of collaborators to help us film a series of short videos that would correspond to the storyboard we had created. Once complete, we exported all wireframes from Figma as PNGs and began to overlay them on our video files using Davinci Resolve. We used Davinci for UI integration as well as post processing and exporting.
INSPIRATION
Our team was inspired by our love of food and food service workers. Prior to starting my Master of Architecture program at Penn, I worked in a fast-paced Chicago restaurant. My initial experience of “learning the ropes” was inefficient to say the least. Gaining professional level mastery of menu expertise, order memorization and work-flow organization took time. Not to mention the years it takes to build up the social skills required to communicate efficiently and effectively with customers. Being a service worker is hard. However, together our team used our research and design background to create an AR tool that would pave the way for future novice and veteran service workers alike!