The Problem
The COVID-19 pandemic put the service industry worldwide into a uniquely challenging situation. When all restaurants, bars, and breweries closed to stop the spread of the virus, they were forced to create new ways of creating revenue without contributing to the horrific amount of death and lonely suffering in their communities. Everyone soon realized that what many hoped would be temporary could last an indefinite amount of time. When these spaces were allowed to produce again, how would they share their product with customers in a quick, efficient manner that required little to no physical contact?
The Solution
Many owners, managers, and brewers turned to QR codes as a means of sharing a menu without actually requiring physical contact with a printed menu or gathering in a space to view a digital menu on a television. A customer can simply scan the code with their phone, then view the menu from a safe distance on their own personal device.
Untappd for Business (UTFB)
What did this mean for Untappd for Business? UTFB is a tool for bars, breweries, bottle shops, and restaurants to quickly create and share beer menus by utilizing the database of beers that Untappd users have built and perfected over the last ten years. A user can type in the beer that they have and UTFB will autofill all of its details such as ABV, IBU, style, description, etc. The user can then share this menu with a printed template, a digital template on a tv, a website or Facebook embed, or in the Untappd app.
However, our platform did not offer a means of creating or sharing QR codes for an easy, contactless experience. Our product and engineering teams, along with executive leadership decided this needed to be a priority in order to help these businesses back on their feet as safely as possible.
My Role
Our product designer at the time gave me the opportunity to run the show on this particular project, as he was planning to move on to a new company before the work would be completed. I created the initial design in Figma and made a rough first prototype that we shared with coworkers across different teams for them to fiddle with while we asked them questions about their feelings and expectations via Zoom. Design collaboration and testing remotely was a challenge at first, but we quickly found a routine and received rich and thoughtful feedback from our peers.
Customers would want to be able to edit the area under “Scan for our menu.” There are so many rules that restaurants have customized these days.
– Customer Success
This was also the first time in a long time at Untappd that the product team was empowered to reach out across teams for insight, and it was a breath of fresh air for me. Not only was it useful and informative, but I felt that it fostered a meaningful exchange of trust and empathy between teams.
After a couple rounds of iterating on my end and feedback between teams, stakeholders, engineers, and executives, I finished with a final design that utilized some existing code and site infrastructure while also offering new, useful tools. A user would now be able to create a QR code in UTFB that linked to an Untappd menu or external link, then they could download it as a PNG for immediate use on their own products, or they could create a QR Poster in our builder that featured an experience similar to our other builders.
The Final Design
Below you can explore my Figma prototype that was the reference material for engineers. While most of this final design was implemented, a few things will be added down the road so the project could stay in scope and release on time.
(Prototype best viewed in fullscreen on a desktop device.)
The Future
I am proud of this project and its quick adoption by users, but there are naturally future considerations I do hope to see UTFB pursue to make the product as robust and accessible as possible. For example I would like to see better integration with our embeds so that users can have even more control and less work to share a non-beer menu with their customers. Additionally, I do have concerns about accessibility for those who do not have smart devices with which to easily view these codes. While they are typical, they are not universal and additional time and investment should be put into contactless experiences for all.