Human/ComputerUnit 2

Running head: HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

HUMAN-COMPUTER INTERACTION

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Student’s Name

Institutional Affiliation

Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)

Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a critical field in the digital era. HCI describes how humans can interact with computers. The rapid technological developments have led to the introduction of new systems and sophisticated user interfaces (UI) that facilitated the interaction between computers and humans. Today, employees and customers can perform a wide range of activities, including data input and output, using various points of interaction. For instance, restaurant staff uses a point of sale interface to process the customer order and payments, leading to efficiency and accountability. This report outlines the electronic point of sales user interface (UI) design for Popeyes Restaurant in the United States.

Description of the Organization

Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen, Inc. is an American fast-food restaurant. The chain was founded in 1972 in New Orleans, Louisiana and is currently headquartered in Miami, Florida. Popeyes is specialized in serving fried chicken and emerged to the second-largest quick-service chicken restaurant group after Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). Popeyes chicken involves different varieties, including spicy and mild flavors. In 2019, the company introduced a chicken sandwich which helped in raising its popularity profile among consumers in the United States (Haigh, 2019). Besides, the restaurant company serves seafood, desserts, sauces, sandwiches, beverages.

Popeyes is the second-largest fast-food chicken restaurant in terms of the number of units in the United States. As of 2018, Popeyes restaurant operated in over 3,000 locations in the United States and 30 countries worldwide. The company owns several franchises in over 40 states, including Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. Popeyes also employs more than 2,130 people working in company-owned restaurants and franchises. Similarly, the revenues of the company have increased in the last three years. According to Maynard (2019), the company’s revenues surged from $2.3 billion in 2013 to $3.7 billion in 2019. The restaurant’s robust income and worldwide locations make it one of the largest quick-service restaurants in the world.

User Interface (UI) Design

User interface (UI) refers to the point of interaction between users and digital devices. The concept involves the way humans communicate with computers. Usually, people interact with computers through various UIs such as a mouse, keyboard, and monitor. Consequently, users can access information through computer applications and websites. User interfaces have been designed to coincide with human senses, including touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight. Some of the types of user interfaces are a graphical user interface (GUI), touch user interface, voice interface, and command-line interface (Rouse, 2019). For example, the point of sales (POS) system is one of the effective user interfaces that have been designed to enhance customer experiences and improve operations in restaurants.

The point of sale helps customers and employees in restaurants to make orders and restaurants. Users can use this type of interface online or in person. The electronic point of sales allows customers to order food and make payments virtually for the service. POS used to capture a wide range of data, including sales data, transactions, inventory and customer management data. According to Stubbs (2019), on-premise and online point of sales are the main user interfaces used in restaurants. Many companies prefer cloud-based POS because of its lower upfront costs, scalability, and flexibility.

The user interface screen design of the proposed hybrid point of sale is expected to have different special features. First, the system should contain menus where users can browse and access information. These include a different variety of food and drinks served in the restaurant and their corresponding prices. Secondly, the UI screen should have an order button, whereby the customer can click after selecting their choice of food or drink from the menu. The user interface screen of the new system should also show acceptable payments such as PayPal and Visa card payment system. Similarly, the user interface should consist of the “Help” menu, where customers can contact online customer care personnel who offers instant feedback. The navigation components to be included in the UI include slider, search fields, icons.

The new POS system for the company should be able to capture data in different languages, include Spanish and English. The system will have users’ interface language settings, whereby customers and employees can configure their preferred language. If the language is not available, the customer can revert to the restaurant language. The cloud-based POS will also offer automatic translations, thus facilitating smooth transactions and enhancing the customer experience. The POS user interface design will also pay attention to language orientation. Notably, the size of words varies widely in different languages. For instance, one word in the English language can be translated into many words in Spanish or French. As a result, the UI design will reserve enough space for longer texts and design the system to incorporate right-to-left languages.

In conclusion, the new point of sale user interface design for Popeyes will increase efficiency in the organizations and improve customer experience. Most importantly, the system will promote a diverse environment since the UI design can accommodate different languages. Similarly, the implementation of the POS system will assist in reducing errors in transactions and payments, thus improving accountability in the organization.

References

Haigh, M. (2019, Dec. 14). Why Chick-fil-A, Popeyes, and McDonald’s launched a chicken sandwich war in 2019. CNBC, Retrieved from https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/14/why-chick-fil-a-popeyes-mcdonalds-launched-a-chicken-sandwich-war.html

Maynard, M. (2019, Nov.8). Inside the fried chicken sandwich wars: how Popeyes stacks up against a flock of competition. Forbes, Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michelinemaynard/2019/11/08/inside-the-fried-chicken-sandwich-wars-how-popeyes-stacks-up-amid-a-flock-of-competition/#7772d8dc6ead

Rouse, M. (2019). User interface (UI). Retrieved from https://searchapparchitecture.techtarget.com/definition/user-interface-UI

Stubbs, A.T. (2019). What Is a Point of Sale (POS) System? Retrieved from https://www.softwareadvice.com/resources/what-is-a-point-of-sale-system/