The thing about the Steve & Kate's lunch line was that there wasn't a line. Kids settled in at tables while staff acted as Food Hawkers delivering the day's assortment. Food was prepared based on the lunch orders parents placed each day, either in full-service check-in or via Express Check-In. Campers then requested what they wanted at lunch, change orders accepted.
As staff delivered each serving, they used The Lunch Line in our staff iOS app to scan camper badges and check for allergies to ensure a safe lunch for all. Happy parents. Happy kids. Happy staff.
For more behind the scenes on this project, check out my Systems Thinking Case Study.
Scope:
45 Camps around the U.S. serving about 30,000 kids
My Role:
- Product & UX design
- React Native Styles
Outcomes:
- Staff reported easier lunchtime allergy management
- Lunch lines eliminated
Taking Care of Kids & Staff at camp
Steve & Kate had tried a number of different approaches at lunch time, all with the goal of limiting kids’ wait times, allowing choice, and keeping kids safe. After they landed on the food hawker solution, my designs had the same goals. The technology was there to support a tested real-world process and it needed to be simple, fast, and usable in a very active environment.
During site visits in different parts of the country, I watched staff deliver lunches and observed slight variations in their approaches. Most camps helped campers sit in age-group huddles and worked in teams with one person checking allergies and another hawking food. At smaller sites, the same person might need to allergy check and deliver. My designs made sure staff at any site could use the same scanning system for lunch, our anytime snack bar, and in the Bread Baking station. The design made it easy for Camp Directors to verify all attending campers had scanned in for lunch.
Taking Care of Parents
After my site visits, I also worked with our Director of Customer Experience to understand requirements and different state laws that impacted intake forms required during registration. I created designs to update intake and registration forms, calling attention to severe allergies (those that require an epi-pen) and created a quicker way for parents to place the daily lunch order in the Express Check-In project.
