Service changes by the second.
Tabs move between staff, payment states, and service areas during the same shift.
Work 02 · Service
Bar Tabs &
Table Service
Staff need one clear place to find a tab, understand its state, and take the next action.
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My roleResearch and design lead
Workflow architecture, testing, direction, and release review
Research15 staff interviews
Customer sessions, expert workshops, and ten competing products
Period2024 to 2026
Work with design, product, and engineering
StatusReleased and evolving
Bar Tabs shipped. Table Service remains in design
Project value
Reduce errors and keep service moving during a busy shift.
What the design needed to achieve
- ✓
Make every open bill easy to find and understand.
- ✓
Protect restricted actions without forcing staff to lose their place.
- ✓
Carry service status from tabs into a clear table view.
Slow recovery affects guests.
Unpaid tabs, unclear ownership, and restricted actions create delay and errors.
Keep state and action together.
One overview shows each bill, its owner, its status, and the actions available.
Design decisions
Turn service research into visible rules for every tab.
01Research the pressure
Field understanding
I reviewed ten products, interviewed 15 staff, earned Smart Serve, and worked behind a bar.
Intended impact
The design reflects service speed, errors, training, and low-light conditions.
02Build one working overview
Visible state
The Bar Tabs Visualizer combines tile and list views, search, quick view, filters, ownership, and status.
Intended impact
Staff can find a bill and understand its current state quickly.
03Replace drag with selection
Lower learning effort
Testing changed bill splitting from drag and drop to a select-and-assign model.
Intended impact
The split stays explicit and requires less new interaction learning.
04Keep approval in context
Recover safely
Restricted access originally forced a logout. Manager approval now happens inside the active workflow.
Intended impact
Staff can recover without losing the tab or their place.
05Extend the same model
Table service
Table Service carries bills, seats, and service status into a floor view with defined recovery states.
Intended impact
The spatial view uses the same service rules instead of creating a separate system.
Product proof
The service model works from tab overview to floor planning.
Each table shows ownership, timing, and payment state at a glance.
This concept tested the authoring model before its placement changed.
Result
Bar Tabs shipped, while Table Service remains a defined extension.
Bar Tabs
The first release supports single-server tabs and clear payment states.
Table Service
The unshipped extension includes floor, seat, permission, offline, and conflict states.
Service signals
Future measures include recall success, closing time, permission failures, and recovery completion.