honei Experience

Redesign + Gamification proposal

Alessandro Senato

Product Designer, Gamification specialist
mockup

This proposal is meant to add features to the Honei platform in order to:
  1. Boost HONEI market penetration.
  2. Enhance restaurant loyalty and retention.
Created as a personal project, I believe it's worth sharing.

One day at a bar,
I had a lightbulb moment with a friend...
Why should QR codes only display menus?
Why not let customers order and pay directly from their phones?
We started developing the idea and researching, only to find that someone else was already working on a similar concept: HONEI.
Why should QR codes only display menus?

Why not let customers order and pay directly from their phones?
We started developing the idea and researching, only to find that someone else was already working on a similar concept: HONEI.
Then we chose to pivot.
Our new direction involved adding gamification to the platform, creating a tool for data collection, loyalty, and marketing.
I started designing a gamification mechanism that would benefit everyone involved: the bar owner, the customers and HONEI
Then we chose to pivot and create a unique niche for us.
Our new direction involved adding gamification to the dining experience, creating a tool for data collection, loyalty, and marketing.
While my friend chose a different path, I believed in the potential of this idea. I started designing a gamification mechanism that would benefit everyone involved: the bar owner, the customers, HONEI
As I studied HONEI, their product, company, and vision, I realized my concept mirrored theirs very closely.
So instead of competing, why not collaborate?
I reimagined my idea as an enhancement to HONEI's existing platform!
As I studied HONEI, their product, company, and vision, I realized my concept mirrored theirs very closely.

So instead of creating a new company, why not collaborate?
I reimagined my idea as an enhancement to HONEI's existing platform!

...so here are two proposed improvements HONEI could benefit from:

1. UX enhancement

2. Gamification system

UX enhancement

1. Menu navigation system

an organized menu architecture can make the order faster and streamline the process

2. Rich dish details (with AI)

Customers today are quite health conscious paying close attention to the nutritional value and quality of what they eat

3. Tipping incentives

Adding a photo and name of the server creates a personal connection that can increase customers' motivation to tip

4. Design best practices

The design system leverages the latest UX methodologies, ensuring the design is highly maintainable, scalable, flexible, and customizable

Design System

The design system has been meticulously crafted utilizing the latest advancements in design principles. This approach yields a robust design framework that is adaptable, scalable, highly maintainable, and effortlessly customizable.

Accessibility

The UI design complies with WCAG 2.1 standards, ensuring inclusivity for users with visual impairments and other needs, to deliver a seamless and accessible experience

Brand Customization

Like any white label platform, Honei needs to offer brand customization. Figma Variables provides an excellent way to customize designs, allowing for adjustments to color palettes, typefaces, and other parameters. By using tokenization techniques, we can create a flexible and easily maintainable design system.

Handoff to developers

A well crafted Design System significantly enhances the handoff process to developers by offering reusable components, clear guidelines, and standardized design principles. This job was made using exclusively Figma Auto Layout, which standardizes components and simplifies responsiveness.

Such an approach ensures a smooth handoff, allowing developers to implement designs accurately and efficiently, reducing errors, saving time, and delivering consistent, high-quality user experiences.

Comprehensive redesign of the app

Overview of the main screen redesigned

Prototype available on request

Gamification System

This gamified system is the foundation of a larger transformation. By leveraging gamification, AI, and data insights, we can have an great impact on:

  • the dining experience for customers
  • operational efficiency for restaurant owners.

As the system evolves, it will drive deeper engagement, optimize decision-making, and create a more interactive and rewarding restaurant ecosystem. With continuous innovation in this direction, Honei is set to impact on the future of dining.

Following are the foundational concepts:

1. Honei Experience​

The gamification system consist in earning points each time a customer dine at a restaurants that uses Honei.
The points accumulate in rankings and the customers gets perks, discounts and other benefits from ranking high.

The system is designed to generate
  1. Customer Loyalty
  2. Data points for marketing and optimization
  3. Data points for HONEI AI
  4. A base system for targeted marketing actions
  5. Word-of-mouth marketing for HONEI
  6. Stock management optimization

2. Group Ambassador

The core concept is the Group Ambassador. Groups of friends have one or two persons typically more influential when it comes to selecting dining spots. They have the ability to influence decisions within the group and bring it to the restaurant.

By recognizing and rewarding our special customers through the game mechanisms, we can attract groups to our restaurant rather than just individuals.

Restaurants benefit from attracting these influential diners, as each Ambassador can regularly bring in groups. The system allows restaurants to identify these influencers and create marketing campaigns and offers tailored to their preferences.

By rewarding them with perks and discounts, Group Ambassadors are encouraged to promote Honei in restaurants that doesn’t use it yet. This fosters a word-of-mouth effect, as Ambassadors advocate for Honei, driving more restaurants to join and enjoy the benefits. This mechanism, if well designed, can be the key for a huge increment in the adoption rate of the platform.

Customers will enjoy exclusive discounts and complimentary perks, while group ambassadors will receive special discounts for themselves and their groups.

Additionally, the ranking system could ignite a friendly competition, generating more engagement for both restaurants and HONEI.

3. Rankings

Every customer will participate to three rankings, each of them will have different benefits

This multi-tiered system ensures that users engage with Honei on different levels, exploring new places, building neighborhood loyalty, and deepening relationships with favorite restaurants.

Ranking system

Honei's ranking system rewards users for their influence and engagement with restaurants. It has three levels:

Global Influence in the City​​

  • The City Ranking tracks a user’s total accumulated points across all Honei-partnered restaurants within a city.
  • It rewards Leaders who frequently open tables in different locations and consistently engage with the Honei ecosystem.
  • Higher-ranked users gain increasing discounts that apply to all restaurants in the city, encouraging them to explore and introduce Honei to new places.

Rewards for High Rankers

Discount on the final bill for all table participants, making group dining more attractive.

Strategic Purpose

  • Incentivizes Honei adoption across multiple restaurants.
  • Encourages Leaders to expand the ecosystem rather than always visiting the same venues.
  • Ensures that frequent diners (who contribute the most to the platform) receive long-term benefits.

Local Area Engagement & Priority Access​

  • Tracks points earned within a specific neighborhood or district (e.g., Eixample in Barcelona).
  • Recognizes users who frequently dine in the same area, building local restaurant loyalty.
  • Encourages repeat visits and long-term relationships between customers and restaurants.

Rewards for High Rankers

Priority table reservations → The higher the rank, the longer (in mins) a table can stay reserved for them until they arrive.

Strategic Purpose

  • Encourages customers to become regulars in their local dining spots.
  • Helps restaurants secure loyal, high-value patrons instead of relying solely on new customers.
  • Allows businesses to target their best local customers with tailored offers.

Loyalty to a Specific Venue

  • Tracks a user’s ranking within a single restaurant, based on total points earned there.
  • Encourages Leaders and groups to return to their favorite spots to maintain their status and perks.
  • Restaurants can leverage this ranking to identify and reward their best customers.

Rewards for High Rankers

Free perks such as free sides, drinks, or chef’s specials, exclusive to top-ranked customers.

Strategic Purpose

    • Encourages repeat visits and long-term loyalty to individual restaurants.
    • Gives restaurants a direct way to recognize and reward their most valuable customers.
    • Turns dining into a competitive social game, where users strive to maintain top status at their favorite spots.

Upselling F.O.M.O.

The gamification system can boost the upselling technique already in use in the Honei platform.

F.O.M.O. boost for upselling

The upselling section, regardless of its placement in the process, will benefit from an additional incentive for customers to add items to their ticket by earning extra points.

Our algorithm will identify when a customer is near a new upgrade and suggest menu items that will help them reach that goal.

This approach will encourage customers to add more items to their ticket, enhancing our upselling strategy.​

Point summary and incoming goals

Before completing the transaction, users can see how many points they will earn and the distance from the nearest goals. This encourages them to add more items to their ticket.

Targeted marketing tool

Through the Honei Panel, owners will have access to tools, both automatic and semi-automatic, that help them create targeted campaigns and special offers to customers identified as influential group ambassadors.

By analyzing metrics and statistics on all clients within the Honei Panel, owners can identify the most loyal leaders or the highest ranking ones, allowing them to incentivize these customers to return for visits.

Offers can include free perks, discounts, loyalty points, or other benefits, giving owners the flexibility to choose what to offer and to whom.

Hi-ranking customers

By directly connecting with high-ranking and loyal customers, the restaurant owner can create special offers tailored for them, knowing they have the power to influence others.​

Valuable data points

After a few months of using this system, the restaurant owner will gather valuable insights about their customers. With this data, they can develop various strategies to attract different groups of patrons.

Social Network activity

For example, points, offers and discounts can be provided in exchange Social networks activities of the customers.

Inventory Management tools

Owners can take advantage of offers and perks to avoid wastes in their inventory

Effective inventory management is essential for restaurant profitability and customer satisfaction. Advanced stock tools enable precise tracking, allowing restaurants to quickly use surplus items as customer perks or specials.

This strategy boosts customer satisfaction, reduces food waste, optimizes resources, and enhances overall operational efficiency and profitability.

Data points from Gamification

A gamification system can be set to provide precious data points

Through Honei's gamification system, restaurants (and HONEI itself) will use the data they collect to improve
  • operational efficiency
  • customer loyalty
  • overall revenue growth
effectively converting data insights into concrete business actions.

Restaurants can pinpoint customers who consistently bring groups, turning these influential customers into ambassadors to increase business.

Leveraging Leader data for targeted promotions, such as personalized offers and discounts aimed at leaders who regularly attract groups, to incentivize repeat visits and increase overall restaurant traffic.

Restaurants can analyze how gamification influences customer behavior, such as leaving earlier to earn additional points, thus optimizing table turnover and boosting overall restaurant capacity and profitability.

By identifying patterns in customer ordering through gamification (which items earn the most points or rewards), restaurants can strategically push specific menu items, optimizing inventory, reducing waste, and improving margins.

Restaurants can monitor customer engagement levels (points earned, frequency of visits) to strengthen loyalty programs, offering personalized rewards such as discounts, reservation priorities, or complimentary items to their most loyal customers.

Gamification-generated insights help restaurants identify successful cross-selling and upselling techniques (like suggested extras and complements) that significantly increase the average spend per customer visit, potentially by up to 21%.

Restaurants using Honei’s gamified system tend to receive higher numbers of positive online reviews, enhancing their visibility on platforms like Google and attracting more customers.

Game Simulation

To maximize the profit for all the stakeholders is important to design a mathematical simulation that harmonizes all the variables

This game, while simple, involves many variables that need careful consideration. Each variable must be calibrated and tested over time to ensure a smooth interaction among all participants. When calibrated correctly, these variables can benefit everyone involved: restaurants can boost their overall revenue (even with discounts and perks), customers enjoy advantages that foster positive social dynamics, and Honei can gain market traction, increasing its adoption rate.

However, these variables must be harmonized to maximize benefits for all. To optimize the key variables, we could create a simulation that mimics all participants and potential scenarios, allowing us to see how different variable values can enhance overall gains.

Variables to Set

$PT_PER_EURO​
Number of points customers earn per € spent
$PT_FOR_LEADER
Percentage of total points earned by the table that the leader receives as a bonus
$PT_FOR_NEW_OPENING
Extra points given to a customer who opens a table at a newly onboarded Honei restaurant
$CITY_DISCOUNT
Percentage discount applied to customers' food costs based on their city ranking
$CITY_RANKING_THRESHOLD
Number of points required to move to a new city rank
$NEIGHBORHOOD_RANKING_THRESHOLD
Points required to move up in neighborhood rank
RESTAURANT_RANKING_THRESHOLD
Points needed to unlock higher status at a specific restaurant
$LEADER_COOLDOWN
Minimum time before a Leader can open another table at the same restaurant to avoid abuse
$POINTS_DECAY_RATE
Percentage of points lost per month to prevent users from hoarding points
$MIN_PEOPLE_FOR_LEADER_BONUS
Minimum number of participants at a table for the leader to receive their extra point bonus
$MAX_LEADER_SESSIONS_PER_WEEK
Limits how many times a user can earn leader bonuses in a single week to prevent abuse
$NEW_RESTAURANT_BONUS_LIMIT
Caps how many times a user can claim a new restaurant bonus per month
$TABLE_RESERVATION_TIME
Time that a table stays reserved for high-ranking users
$TABLE_RESERVATION_TIME
Extra points given to customers who leave early, encouraging faster table turnover
$RESTAURANT_CUSTOM_DISCOUNT
Custom discounts set by a restaurant for customers using Honei

Variables to Maximize

$RESTAURANT_PROFIT_MARGIN
Determines the financial impact of discounts and perks on the restaurant’s bottom line
$HONEY_RESTAURANT_RETENTION_RATE
How long restaurants stay on Honei before churning
$HONEY_ORGANIC_GROWTH_RATE
The percentage of new restaurants acquired via Leader referrals instead of direct sales
$PERK_COST_TO_BUSINESS
The average cost for restaurants to provide perks (e.g., free drink vs. free meal)
$AVG_RESTAURANT_REVENUE_PER_SESSION
Average revenue a restaurant earns per Honei table.
$TABLE_TURNOVER_RATE
How quickly tables are freed up for new customers (higher turnover = more revenue).

Conclusions

The gamification system has been strategically designed as an initial implementation, laying the foundation for future expansion into a broader, more sophisticated engagement strategy within the Honei platform.

  1. The primary objective for Honei is market penetration in restaurants and bars through natural, user-driven word-of-mouth promotion. Users, motivated by their interest in earning discounts and climbing rankings, will spontaneously encourage their favorite bars and restaurants to join, thus significantly enhancing organic platform growth.

  2. The main benefit for restaurants is customer loyalty and retention. From this gamification system they will gain the ability to identify influential customers and target them with special offers and tailored marketing campaigns, significantly improving fidelization.

This system can be integrated within a few months, after which Honei will benefit from an ongoing, cost-effective boost in platform adoption driven by user engagement and organic promotion.

What Duolingo has done to language education with gamification can be also done by HONEI to the dining experience.