Let's Dutch!
Dutch is a term that indicates that each person participating in a paid activity covers their own expenses, rather than any one person in the group defraying the cost for the entire group. The term stems from restaurant dining etiquette in the Western world, where each person pays for their meal. Dutch is a mobile app concept for splitting a check at the restaurant between a group of people.
UI/UX
Mobile App Design
Software used: Sketch
Understanding the Users & their pain points
To understand and conceptualize this idea, I decided to experience it myself. I planned a lunch with three friends and observed the way the reacted after the check arrived. I asked them how they felt about splitting their checks. I also conducted thorough interviews with other users to understand their experiences and thoughts about splitting the check at restaurants and how they resolve this. Here are some insights.
“Sometimes my friends end up ordering more than two drinks and I end up paying for them, I don’t like it. I want to pay for what I ordered.”
“I don’t care, I just split even and get over with”
“Ideally I would like to pay for what I ate, but I don’t want to micro-manage after the check arrives, its just awkward and I don’t want to trouble the waiter.”
Key insights summarised
Understanding the pain points and keeping user needs in mind I started with very early stages of prototyping using sketches and basic wireframes. Here are some of the examples:
01. Split Even
The App has two options, slit the check even or split the check by dish.
Let's see the flow for Split even. This can be achieved in simple four steps.
1. Input total no. of people
2. Total bill with taxes
3. Total tip
4. Hit go
The App calculates the total for you to pay. Now, while you know the total, some people like to round out the figure "$34.59" and pay $34 instead of the actual amount. In large groups, this difference adds up and the person who paid ends up getting less money from others. This was a big concern!
02. Split by Dish
Split by dish scenario, here we need to know the total no of people and also what dishes they ordered and shared. To understand this we need to have a list of the dish and tag each person to those dishes. We see the entire summary of the person including the dishes shared/ordered along with the taxes and tip. The total will be then shared by email or text to the person to pay later. Again this does not fully solve the purpose. According to user insights, some users do not like to follow up.
Split Even
Split By Dish
Based on my insights, I have come up with the concept of a mobile app called Dutch that allows user to scan their check, tag people to dishes they ordered/shared, view/share the complete summary for each user and pay.
The Dutch Process
To understand and conceptualize this idea, I decided to experience it myself. I planned a lunch with three friends and observed the way the reacted after the check arrived. I asked them how they felt about splitting their checks.
Mock Up
I used Figma to create the clickable prototype
© Kanchan Gaur 2020
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kanchangaur1986@gmail.com
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