I-Corps: SmartMenu

Georgia Tech Research Corporation, Atlanta GA

Investigators

Abstract

Influencing consumer behavior through information is one of the goals of persuasive technology. This project is to design the presentation and timing of choices on restaurant-ordering interfaces to influence diner behavior. Using proprietary algorithms, the team will make personalized meal recommendations based both on a diner's profile and on their past ordering behavior. The algorithms evolved from previous NSF funded research on providing diners with in-the-moment nutritional advice. It is believed that sophisticated diner-computer interfaces, backed by intelligent recommendation engines, will improve a restaurant operator's bottom line and deliver a superior ordering experience for diners. For example, in a recent study the team deployed a self-service ordering terminal at a Quick Service Restaurant that recommended food combinations based on a diner's health goal. Goals might be to lose weight, build muscle or manage diabetes. The result was increased sales for the restaurant by increasing the individual ticket amount for diners using the system. The current project aims to improve the quality of the health-based recommendations made by the system by personalizing them further on the basis of a diner?s past ordering history. Existing Point-of-Sale systems focus on reducing operating costs associated with running a restaurant. The team has an opportunity to supply the restaurant industry with front-end technologies that instead focus on increasing restaurant sales by making contextually relevant meal recommendations to diners. This project has the potential to influence all the orders placed in a restaurant or cafeteria setting including those placed through web and mobile interfaces. According to the National Restaurant Association there were 960,000 restaurant locations in the USA in 2010. CNN reported that, on average, Americans visited a restaurant 193 times in that year. A survey by the National Restaurant Association found that nutrition is a top consumer trend. Study results indicate that providing diners with healthy food suggestions through such ordering interfaces can have a huge impact on the current obesity and diet-related chronic disease epidemic. Consumer demand is not the only driver of this trend; new federal guidelines that will go into effect in December of 2011 mandate that all chain restaurants with more than 20 locations provide complete nutritional information on all of their standard menu items. Ordering at a restaurant generates significant data about consumer dining behavior that is either not captured or is captured but never utilized. The proposed self-service ordering terminals (SmartMenus) capture anonymized diner data, which is easily available for commercial and academic research.