The Platter Pal app concept is designed to improve the restaurant dining experience by addressing pain points identified through UX research, particularly around ordering and bill splitting in group settings. Users could scan a QR code at the table to access a digital menu and place orders either in their own personal cart or share orders within a group, allowing flexible coordination.
A key feature is “Split the Bill Your Way,” which offers flexible payment options: users can pay individually, cover the entire bill, or pay for selected guests. This directly addresses common frustrations with dividing bills, making group dining faster, fairer, and more convenient.
Project overview
Group dining is a common social activity that brings people together, yet it often comes with logistical and emotional challenges. From coordinating orders to splitting the bill fairly, the process can become complicated and frustrating — especially when handled through multiple disconnected tools or manual methods.
This UX research project was conducted to explore these pain points and uncover opportunities to improve the group dining experience. Through five user interviews held in February 2025, the study aimed to understand how people currently plan, order, and manage payments in group dining situations, and what challenges they encounter along the way.
The ultimate goal of this project was to gather actionable insights that inform the design of a digital solution that simplifies coordination, streamlines bill splitting, and ensures fairness and transparency for all participants. The research findings served as the foundation for developing wireframes, low-fidelity prototypes, and user interface designs, which were later tested to evaluate their usability and effectiveness in addressing real user needs.
UX Research
In February 2025, a series of five in-depth user interviews were conducted to explore the experiences, behaviors, and challenges users face when dining in groups. The primary objective of this research was to gain a deeper understanding of how people plan, coordinate, and manage group dining activities — from choosing a restaurant to splitting bills and managing preferences — and to identify opportunities for improving this experience through better design solutions.
Group dining often involves multiple layers of decision-making and coordination, which can lead to friction points such as differing food preferences, unclear cost-sharing methods, or difficulties in making reservations for large parties. By engaging directly with users who frequently participate in group dining, this study sought to uncover both the explicit and implicit needs that shape their behaviors.
The interviews focused on understanding:
How users currently plan and organize group dining events
The digital or offline tools they use during this process
The emotional and social dynamics involved when dining with others
The pain points and frustrations that occur before, during, and after the meal
Insights gathered from these conversations provide valuable guidance for designing a more seamless, inclusive, and enjoyable group dining experience. This report summarizes the key findings, recurring pain points, and design implications derived from the interviews, offering a foundation for future ideation and product development.
Methodology
Research Approach
A qualitative research approach was adopted to gain a deep understanding of user attitudes, motivations, and challenges related to group dining. Semi-structured interviews were selected as the primary method, allowing flexibility to explore emerging themes while maintaining consistency across participants.
Participant Profile
A total of five participants were recruited for this study. All participants had recent experience dining with groups of friends, family, or colleagues within the last three months. The group represented a mix of demographics and dining habits to capture diverse perspectives — including differences in age, occupation, dining frequency, and preferred tools for organizing group meals.
Data Collection
The interviews were conducted remotely via video calls in February 2025, each lasting approximately 30-45 minutes. Key themes include:
Planning and coordination processes for group dining
Decision-making dynamics (e.g., restaurant choice, time, and budget)
Communication methods and tools used before and during dining
Payment and bill-splitting experiences
Memorable positive and negative experiences
Key Findings
The user interviews uncovered several recurring themes that highlight the main challenges people face when dining in groups. Participants shared their frustrations with the complexity of managing shared orders, splitting bills, and maintaining fairness throughout the experience. These insights provided a deeper understanding of users’ needs and guided the identification of key focus areas for design improvement. The following points summarize the most significant findings from the research.
Frustration with bill splitting
Pain Point
Users find it challenges to manually calculate and divide bills, often switching between multiple tools like Tikkie or calculators.
Insight
A seamless, automated bill-splitting feature would simplify payments and reduce post-meal confusion.
Difficulties with food preferences and portion sizes
Pain Point
Varying dietary restrictions and unclear portion sizes make ordering for groups confusing and unsatisfying.
Insight
Tools that help visualize preferences and recommend suitable portions could make ordering easier and fairer.
Unfair and complex bill splitting
Pain Point
Splitting bills fairly is challenging when group members order differently or share unevenly, leading to awkwardness.
Insight
An accurate, transparent payment system can promote fairness and reduce social discomfort.
Limited technology solutions for group dining
Pain Point
Current apps (e-menus, payment tools) don’t support the full group dining journey, forcing users to rely on manual coordination.
Insight
There’s a clear opportunity for an integrated digital solution that streamlines planning, ordering, and payments.
Design Implications
Based on the user research findings, two key opportunity areas were prioritized for design development: Streamline Bill Splitting and Foster Fairness & Transparency. These focus areas guided the creation of wireframes, low-fidelity prototypes, and user interface concepts to address users’ main pain points effectively.
Streamline Bill Splitting
Users need a faster, simpler way to divide payments without switching between multiple tools. The design concept emphasizes an automated bill-splitting feature that identifies individual and shared items, calculates totals instantly, and integrates with common payment apps. This approach minimizes manual effort and reduces post-meal confusion.
Foster Fairness and Transparency
Fairness in cost-sharing and clear communication are critical to maintaining harmony within groups. The design focuses on transparent order summaries and real-time bill visibility, allowing users to see exactly what they owe and why. This transparency builds trust and ensures everyone feels treated equally.
Wireframes and low-fi Prototype
Conclusion
The user research conducted in February 2025 provided valuable insights into the challenges people face when dining in groups, particularly around managing payments and ensuring fairness. Through five in-depth interviews, key pain points such as manual bill splitting, unequal cost division, and lack of transparency in group payments were identified.
In response, the design process focused on two main opportunity areas — Streamline Bill Splitting and Foster Fairness and Transparency. These themes directly informed the development of wireframes, low-fidelity prototypes, and user interface designs aimed at simplifying group payments and creating a more equitable dining experience.
The findings underscore the importance of designing tools that not only improve efficiency but also support trust, clarity, and ease of use in social dining contexts. Moving forward, further usability testing and user feedback will be essential to refine the proposed solutions, validate their effectiveness, and ensure they align with real-world group dining behaviors.
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