andrea da silva

Interaction Designer · 10 Weeks · Spring 2024 · College Case Study

Cheers

Empathetic payment system redefining tipping through transparent, autonomous, and private guest experiences.

Overview

Cheers is a payment terminal and app ecosystem rethinking tipping for food-service workers. The team set out to make the tipping moment less awkward for guests and more equitable for staff.

Research

We started with secondary research, surveys, interviews, and workshops to map the current state of tipping.

The numbers from our discovery work:

19

Interviews

12

Participants

64

Responses

40+

Articles

Key finding

People empathize with food service employees' salary struggles, but the current tipping system is rubbing them the wrong way.

Development

Personas and empathy maps drove the concept. The team wrote a "How Might We" statement that anchored every design decision.

  • Concept frame
  • Wireframe
  • Mockup

Testing

Six iteration cycles refined the experience.

BeforeTip calculation v1
AfterRefined tip calculation
Tip calculation step refined for clarity after user testing.

Final Product

The shipped design includes app-clip screens, terminal screens, and customer + staff app variants. See the process book for the full deliverable.