Aloha Smart Manager

Introduction

For more than 20 years, NCR Voyix has helped restaurants manage their operations through a suite of products. But, over time, this portfolio became fragmented with features being underutilized and systems that could not scale in a cloud-first environment. Aloha Smart Manager (ASM) was created to modernize these legacy products into a unified, cloud-based platform designed to support the demands of today’s restaurant operations.

My Role as a Lead Designer

For ASM, I led the end-to-end design of labor-related features, established global design patterns, and cross-collaborated with other product teams to ensure a cohesive, consistent user experience. I carried the work from the kickoff to its initial launch.

Timeline & Team

Timeline: March 2022 - August 2025

My team:

4+ UX Designers 
4+ UX Researchers 
8+ PMs/POs (In-house and outsourced)
30+ Developers (In-house and outsourced)

Outcomes & Impacts

Resolved critical compliance gaps to be unlocked in six key-state jurisdictions: California, New York, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, and Colorado.
Delivered a WCAG-compliant, responsive, and scalable platform designed to support future data-migration needs.
Streamlined the reporting experience, reducing more than 100 labor reports to 12 essential, high-value reports.

Schedule

Challenge

Scheduling on its legacy product is outdated, lacks essential functionality, and fails to meet accessibility standards.

Approach

I designed a scheduling experience informed by customer feedback and usability insights. To meet the Starter launch, I prioritized essential features while slating the remaining for the Core release.

Design-Supported Features

Introduced features to enhance scheduling speed and optimized data visibility for cost-effective staffing decisions.

Incorporated a Summary Data drawer to surface key labor-costs metrics

Added clear alerts using icons, tooltip, and WCAG-compliant color texts to warn userS

Accessibility Stratetgy & Implementation

I conducted a comprehensive audit with the accessibility specialist and collaborated with development to prioritize critical fixes. This ensured Schedule would meet WCAG AA at launch.

Roadmap Shift & Reassessment

In my initial handoff, the Summary Data drawer included seven data points, but only three could be exposed in the first release. The data source was being developed alongside Schedule, and several reports weren’t ready in time. To keep launch on track, we prioritized what was available and planned the remaining data points for the Core release.

Outcomes & Impact

The redesign made Schedule WCAG-compliant at launch and provided essential features out-of-the-box so managers could start scheduling right away.

Labor Rules

Roadmap Shift & Reassessment

Although labor rules configuration was redesigned, it was not compliant with overtime and break regulations in certain jurisdictions due to gaps in its current design and functionality. This prevented it from being sold in certain states. My team and I worked with channel partners to understand what else is needed to meet compliance.

Design Enhancement

I enhanced the existing labor rule template to support customizable overtime and break rules, making it more adaptable to various jurisdictions while also simplifying data migration.

Cross-Feature Integration

I applied break and overtime enforcement to other touch points such Labor reports and Schedule.

Outcomes & Impact

With these compliance gaps closed, I helped unlock sales in key-state jurisdictions such as California, New York, Oregon, etc.

Labor Reports

Challenge

The legacy reporting system offers too much flexibility, resulting in an overload of disorganized, hard-to-manage reports. The inefficient layout further compounds the issue, making it difficult for users to navigate and extract meaningful insights.

Approach

I partnered with Product leaders to identify and prioritize essential reports to reduce clutter.

Solution

I redesigned the report layout for a more intuitive and user-friendly experience.

Validating Design

I tested mid-fidelity prototypes to see whether a modal or dropdown filter worked best for users when interacting with the filter bar.

Implementation

I worked with development to implement the filter bar and refreshed design documentation to create a more consistent adoption across the product.

Outcomes & Impact

I reduced labor report clutter from 100+ reports to 12 essentials and improved discoverability. I increased cross-team adoption of shared components across all reports, dashboard, inventory, and etc.

Shift Tracker

Challenge

Legacy product is outdated and needed more functionality managing employees clocking in and out while staying compliant with labor rules.

Approach

I exposed essential shift details in a scalable, discoverable mobile-first design layout.

Design for Compliance

I applied icons and WCAG-compliant color texts to inform change in shift status. I designated a separate tab for filtering potential out-of-compliance shifts.

Design for Efficiency

Kept crucial information within a tap to see shift and employee details to maximize staffing efficiency.

Designed for Small to Large Restaurants

Robust filtering and sorting to find subset of shifts for all staffing sizes.

Responsive Design

Shift Tracker was designed mobile-first to support managers working on the floor to serve both customers and employees. I ensured the layouts and components scaled seamlessly across desktop and tablet for consistency in any context.

Roadmap Shift & Reassessment

Design handoff had to be broken down into releases as the backend infrastructure was not ready to pull in live data for features such as shift status update or punches. The basic view with the shift details and filters were implemented in its first release.

Outcomes & Impact

Delivered a robust, accessible, mobile feature that improved staffing efficiency and compliance.

Reflections & Learnings

As the lead designer for Labor, I learned to:

design within complex, evolving systems while balancing business goals, technical constraints, and user needs
strengthen cross-team alignment by clearly articulating design trade-offs and rationale
incorporate accessibility in from the start to ensure WCAG compliance
validate reusable design patterns early with users to reduce rework and speed adoption
collaborate early with external stakeholders, such as channel partners, to capture needs we might be overlooking

Aloha Smart Manager

Schedule

Scheduling on its legacy product is outdated, lacks essential functionality, and fails to meet accessibility standards.

I designed a scheduling experience informed by customer feedback and usability insights. To meet the Starter launch, I prioritized essential features while slating the remaining for the Core release.

Introduced features to enhance scheduling speed and optimized data visibility for cost-effective staffing decisions.

I conducted a comprehensive audit with the accessibility specialist and collaborated with development to prioritize critical fixes. This ensured Schedule would meet WCAG AA at launch.

The redesign made Schedule WCAG-compliant at launch and provided essential features out-of-the-box so managers could start scheduling right away.

Labor Rules

I enhanced the existing labor rule template to support customizable overtime and break rules, making it more adaptable to various jurisdictions while also simplifying data migration.

I applied break and overtime enforcement to other touch points such Labor reports and Schedule.

With these compliance gaps closed, I helped unlock sales in key-state jurisdictions such as California, New York, Oregon, etc.

Labor Reports

The legacy reporting system offers too much flexibility, resulting in an overload of disorganized, hard-to-manage reports. The inefficient layout further compounds the issue, making it difficult for users to navigate and extract meaningful insights.

I partnered with Product leaders to identify and prioritize essential reports to reduce clutter.

I redesigned the report layout for a more intuitive and user-friendly experience.

I tested mid-fidelity prototypes to see whether a modal or dropdown filter worked best for users when interacting with the filter bar.

I worked with development to implement the filter bar and refreshed design documentation to create a more consistent adoption across the product.

I reduced labor report clutter from 100+ reports to 12 essentials and improved discoverability. I increased cross-team adoption of shared components across all reports, dashboard, inventory, and etc.

Shift Tracker

Legacy product is outdated and needed more functionality managing employees clocking in and out while staying compliant with labor rules.

I exposed essential shift details in a scalable, discoverable mobile-first design layout.

I applied icons and WCAG-compliant color texts to inform change in shift status. I designated a separate tab for filtering potential out-of-compliance shifts.

Kept crucial information within a tap to see shift and employee details to maximize staffing efficiency.

Robust filtering and sorting to find subset of shifts for all staffing sizes.

Shift Tracker was designed mobile-first to support managers working on the floor to serve both customers and employees. I ensured the layouts and components scaled seamlessly across desktop and tablet for consistency in any context.

Design handoff had to be broken down into releases as the backend infrastructure was not ready to pull in live data for features such as shift status update or punches. The basic view with the shift details and filters were implemented in its first release.

Delivered a robust, accessible, mobile feature that improved staffing efficiency and compliance.

Reflections & Learnings

Other work

Developer Studio from Fiserv

RoCo Wine & Spirits

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