Platform
Service Design
Physical, Digital
Timeline
Oct 2021 – Dec 2023
Multi-sprint expansion
Team
Dir. Guest Experiences
7 Cross-disciplinary
UNT Dining Svcs · 2023
Increasing employee productivity by 15% & customer satisfaction by 25% by improving service design systems across 20+ spaces.
AT A GLANCE
I supported service design efforts across 20+ point-of-sale & service provision locations.
Despite national recognition for food quality, the University of North Texas' Dining Services (DS) faced outdated, inefficient hospitality spaces that impacted guest satisfaction & customer effort scores.
Over two years on the design team, I revamped service provision across 5 dining halls, 20+ retail concepts, on-site hydroponic garden, full-service catering operation, commissary bakery, & central production kitchen to improve customer effort scores, bolster employee productivity, & enhance guest experience.
Rather than following a single 0-to-1 project, the following case study highlights strategies, research methods,
& design thinking I used to support a fast-moving environment.
As the only UX Designer in the organization, I:
Conducted service mapping to identify points of interest
Held conversations with service providers to highlight friction points
Optimized point of sale & retail spaces for accessibility
Expanded employee tools & signage to streamline workflows
Validated new concepts through guerrilla deployment
7%+
increase in sales across all spaces from 2022–2023
$16,000
record broken for daily sales at
one location
25%
improvement in NACUFS survey
CSAT scores
5%
increase in buys from 2 underserved user groups
THE PROBLEM
UNT has nearly 47,000 students. To meet their needs, UNT Dining Services had to modernize.
UNT is the largest university in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex & the third-largest in Texas. Dining Services — UNT’s largest student employer — operates over 20 dining halls & retail locations across 3 campuses.
As students returned to campuses post-COVID, the department faced growing pains. Disorganized processes & outdated tools made it difficult to serve thousands of daily guests efficiently & inclusively.
These challenges meant:
Busy & hungry visitors faced 30+ minute wait times at high-traffic locations
Understaffed teams struggled to meet demand while maintaining quality & safety
Guests with accessibility or dietary needs were underserved & undersupported
Our team set 3 core goals:
Enhance
accessibility
Improve access to essential spaces & information
Reduce
employee workload
Develop low-cost systems to give back time to employees
Build
customer value
Create to nurture loyalty, delight, & satisfaction
THE SOLUTION
We improved guest & employee experiences across 20+ locations by reframing operations to be both welcoming & functional.
We prioritized what mattered most to users: quality & speed of service. We researched, tested, and refreshed:
Employee processes
Back of house
Spatial zoning (impulse zone, core zone, etc.)
Signage & wayfinding
Visual merchandising
Each location's employee practices, spatial configuration, & design language were tailored to reflect its unique offerings, helping guests quickly navigate to their preferred dining options.
HIGHLIGHT FEATURES
Maximizing underutilized spaces increased operational efficiency & expanded service offerings within limited square footage.
We designed & installed compact yet high-impact solutions, including:
Order kiosks
Overhead signage
Compact display units
These interventions delivered outsized financial & experiential returns.
Campus Chat Food Court | Kiosks improved order rates by 80% over the verbal ordering system.
Campus Chat Food Court | This 2-tier unit located within the Campus Chat Food Court averages $1,000 per day.
Custom signage & identifiers created immersive, brand-aligned atmospheres while promoting food safety & inclusivity.
Working closely with production & catering teams, we developed tailored branding for each major concept to celebrate diversity & align visuals with featured cuisine.
Consistent icons for allergens & dietary preferences enabled easy identification, building trust & transparency.
I developed halal, pork, & vegan dietary identifiers.
Conversations with Indian students inspired our signage.
Accessible menus standardized food access
for all students.
Following the rollout of posted menus, I collaborated with the UNT Office of Disability Access to develop large-print, high-contrast versions for visually impaired guests.
These menus guaranteed every student could navigate dining options with confidence.
Service blueprints provided a framework
to help Dining Services scale.
From ordering produce to getting tables cleaned, mapping out existing service structures helped the team continuously identify, define, & improve their workflows.
Service blueprints were also streamlined to be included in employee handbooks, serving as a quick-reference tool for teams to check their processes & ensure everyone is working in harmony.
Simplified marketing production process, included in the Dining Services Creative Handbook to support new employees.
By implementing our features . . .
Guests receive food in under 10 minutes 70% of the time – perfect for a meal between classes.
Team members can focus on maintaining quality over taking orders or answering questions.
Guests with varied needs can independently locate meal options.
UNT Dining Services makes sure there
is a seat at the table for everyone.
DISCOVERY
We identified key spaces to tackle by analyzing customer inquiry trends & guest responses to annual benchmarking surveys.
UNT Dining Services gathers input through a variety of sources, including:
The “Text & Tell” real-time feedback system
Phone & email communications
The annual NACUFS benchmarking survey
All feedback was centralized through a shared platform, allowing us to spot recurring issues & opportunities across locations.
For example, several students mentioned that implementing a kiosk at the food court would speed up the ordering process. The team installed kiosks the following year, which more than doubled ordering & meal production time.
NACUFS guest satisfaction results for
an on-campus Food Court.
We collaborated with team members at each location to learn about their workflows, challenges, & ideas.
Frontline staff shared observations about customer interactions, revealing operational insights that helped us identify immediate, high-impact solutions.
One employee noted that updating daily specials was time-consuming & often led to customer confusion. In response, we designed an interchangeable price card system that allowed staff to quickly update items & pricing. This helped teams adapt to rapid inventory changes while improving clarity for guests.
Interactive service blueprints helped teams identify & exchange ideas on how to make processes simpler.
Design at scale required shared ownership —
& a system to support it.
Few features were owned end-to-end by a single designer. Tasks were frequently passed between teammates contributing to multiple phases across several projects.
To circumvent knowledge gaps, I helped develop a detailed documentation system using Asana to record progress & list outstanding needs, ensuring smoother handoffs.
DESIGN
I used blueprints & crossflow mapping to guide strategic feature placement & improve user flow.
After identifying necessary changes or new additions, I analyzed existing blueprints to map user movement & determine optimal placement. A core focus was on decreasing ground crossflow (ensuring additions didn't lead to foot-traffic jams).
Once a location was selected, surrounding features were meticulously measured to ensure our teams created integrated & accurate mockups.
Campus Chat Food Court | Initial kiosk placement planning.
Eagle Landing | Exploring guest flows to find
an effective condiment bar location.
We developed 100+ 2D mockups per project to rapidly visualize, test, & refine additions.
Initial iterations were shared with the Creative Director for feedback & finalized in Photoshop to accurately reflect real-world environments.
These efficient visualizations enabled us to explore multiple layout ideas within actual spaces without relying on time-consuming 3D modeling or physical prototypes, streamlining collaboration & accelerating decision-making.
Campus Chat Food Court | Verde Everyday soup bar real estate
Bruceteria | Exterior summer signage
VALIDATION
We conducted low-cost guerrilla testing to gather early feedback & validate user interaction with proposed concepts.
Spatial additions were soft-launched & tested using simple paper or cardboard prototypes, placed directly in context to assess 2 key questions:
Did the user (employee or customer) notice & act on the feature?
Did the user understand the intended message or function?
Eagle Landing | Testing condiment labels for a small real estate bar. These lo-fi, hi-rez prototypes were created with paper & tape.
Campus Chat Food Court | Initial testing revealed the need for additional cues encouraging guests to use kiosks rather than order food verbally.
Employee feedback ensured we built systems that worked in practice – not just on paper.
Observing guests was only part of the equation – we needed insight from the employees operating & maintaining our features.
With each implementation, we gathered feedback to understand how new features impacted their workflows. In some cases, systems that improved the guest experience unintentionally created friction for employees, requiring us to adjust our solutions to also better support staff.
DINING SERVICES, TODAY
UNT Dining Services continues to smash records & break barriers in college dining hospitality.
As of April 2025, UNT DS has:
Won 3 Grand & 1 Silver Loyal E. Horton Prizes in a single year (the most recognitions earned by any participating institution)
Won #1 Best College Food in Texas by Niche 3 years in a row
Won #4 Best College Food in America by Niche
The groundwork my team enacted continues to propel UNT DS forward, paving the way for more thoughtful service provision supporting employees & guests alike.
Read more:
“I know I am far from alone in feeling the calm, warm, positive tone [Dining Services] sets the minute we walk in the door."
– Sophie Egan, Co-Director of Menus for Change University Research Collaborative
© Town Hall Seattle
FINAL THOUGHTS
Designing smarter, more inclusive spaces helped UNT Dining Services scale for growth & serve students more meaningfully.
My work helped the department proactively adapt by streamlining systems, enhancing guest experiences, & supporting staff efficiency.
Plus, by advocating for greater cross-pollination of work, I was able to build new relationships between historically siloed departments. The impact was tangible: we broke daily revenue records ($16K+), boosted student engagement by 15%, & increased overall sales by +7%.
My Takeaways:
Champion
collaboration
Work with those around you to build more thoughtful, informed solutions
Support
the outliers
Creating for underserved groups makes things better
for everyone
Think beyond
the interface
Design extends beyond one user flow — consider the entire system
OTHER PROJECTS
© 2025
Currently
Leading UX @Campus Connect AI while consulting @Aperio Insights. Seeking full-time Product Design & UX(R) roles.
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