Platform
Service Design
Physical, Digital
Timeline
Oct 2021 – Dec 2023
Multi-sprint expansion
Team
Dir. Guest Experiences
GDs, CRs, Production
UNT Dining Svcs
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Despite national recognition for food quality, the University of North Texas' Dining Services (DS) faced outdated, inefficient hospitality spaces that impacted guest satisfaction & customer effort scores.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.
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
I have redacted proprietary information from this case study. All information is
my own & does not necessarily reflect the views of the organization.
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 Disorganized processes & outdated tools made it difficult to serve thousands of daily guests efficiently & inclusively.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
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.
Restricted Content: Guest survey 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.
Staff conversations were recorded & translated into service blueprints outlining current processes & opportunities for improvement. Each opportunity was grouped & tagged by number (ex: 1.3, 2.0) into a document for executives to review
Service blueprints helped teams identify & exchange ideas on how to make processes simpler.
On-the-floor employees provided valuable insight on daily interactions, & revealed addressable struggles.
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.
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?
Campus Chat Food Court | Initial testing revealed the need for additional cues encouraging guests to use kiosks rather than order food verbally.
Eagle Landing | Testing condiment labels for a small real estate bar. These lo-fi, hi-rez prototypes were created with paper & tape.
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
These interventions delivered outsized financial & experiential returns.
New units with impulse items made use of underutilized real estate, improved foot traffic, and increased revenue.
Locations were designed with accessible menus, displays, & checkout flows to help customer acquire preferred meals faster.
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.
New kiosks streamlined checkout flows
& reduced wait times.
Our team reimagined the journey around placing, waiting, and paying for an order. We built a kiosk system prioritizing:
Dietary restrictions & allergens
Meal personalization
Meal Plan holder rewards + cash back
These kiosks added additional point-of-sale systems that cut down lines during rush hour and helped customers fuel up faster.
The new design prioritized accessibility & food safety.
Kiosks improved order rates by 80% over the existing ordering system.
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.
By implementing these changes . . .
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.
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
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Supporting UX Research @Aperio Insights. Seeking Product Design & UX(R) roles.
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