From Slow & Confusing to Fast & Reliable POS
Work Type
Mobile App
Website
Date
Jan - May 2024
Total Time
6 Months
TL;DR
Reduced transaction friction by simplifying checkout flow
Eliminated manual end-of-shift calculations
Enabled real-time stock & pricing updates
Improved speed, clarity, and cashier confidence
Background & Context
At my previous workplace, we had a feature-rich Point of Sales (POS) application that unfortunately suffered from a convoluted user flow and overall inefficiency.
During peak hours, every second matters. but in this POS system, even simple actions like selecting a product or processing a payment took longer than they should.
Cashiers weren’t just need to working fast. They were working around the system. That’s where this project started. I focused on redesigning the flow to make it clearer, faster, and flexible enough to handle real restaurant operations not just ideal scenarios. I conduct a research by direct field observations to understand the root causes of the friction.
Problems
Operational issues
Daily sales recap was done manually
High risk of cashier fraud
Stock and pricing didn’t update in real-time
Cashier experience
Slow loading when browsing products
Delays during checkout
System only accepted cash (limiting transactions)
End-of-shift recap was complicated and error-prone
Key Problems:
Slower service during peak hours
Frequent calculation mistakes
Frustration from repetitive manual work
Low trust in the system’s accuracy
A POS should speed things up, this one was doing the opposite.
Objectives
The goal wasn’t just to redesign screens.
It was to make the system:
Faster to use under pressure
Easier to understand without thinking
Reliable enough to remove manual work
Flexible for different restaurant workflows
Constraint
During the brainstorming phase, we faced challenge
Restaurants don’t operate in one fixed way.
The challenge was designing a flow that:
Works across different operational styles
Stays simple for cashiers
Keeps all core features intact
At the same time, we had a technical bottleneck:
Slow loading times were breaking the experience.
So the solution couldn’t just look better — it had to perform better. Additionally, I had to find a way to resolve the severe loading time issues that were bottlenecking the cashiers without stripping away the application's core features.
Solutions
After analyzing competitor products and real usage patterns, I redesigned the flow around how cashiers actually work.
Key Improvements
Simplified product selection → faster browsing
Optimized checkout flow → reduced delays
Added multi-payment support (not just cash)
Automated real-time sync for stock & pricing
Replaced manual recap with automatic end-of-shift summary
Core Features
Real-time cashflow & stock tracking
Built-in analytics
Multi-payment POS
Replacing manual calculations with an automated daily recap system that triggers at the end of a shift.
Table management & KDS support
But the biggest shift wasn’t adding features it was removing unnecessary steps.
Conclusion
When tested in real conditions, the difference was immediate.
Cashiers were able to process transactions much faster due to the flow optimization.
The most impactful change was:
Faster transactions during busy hours
No more manual end-of-shift calculations
Reduced errors in daily reporting
Better visibility into stock and pricing
The most noticeable reaction? Relief. Especially when cashiers realized they no longer had to manually calculate everything at the end of the day.
