srv-food POS — What the Customer Sees

TV—

One number, four places

The customer's whole experience is one glyph. It is said aloud, printed on paper, shown on a board, and typed into a phone. If it fails in any one of those, the others cannot rescue it — so it is designed once and checked in all four.

I was wrong to call the board "two columns and big type". Drawing it surfaced three problems that no other surface exposes — see notes 2, 5 and 7.

The number gap problem

ADR 0005 made numbers non-sequential and nobody checked what a customer makes of that. Screen 3 is the honest version: the board shows A14 B07 A15 B08 and a customer holding B09 has no idea whether they are next or twentieth.

The counter prototype recorded this as an "accepted cost" for offline allocation. Seen on the board it looks less acceptable — the prefix is meaningless to the person reading it.

Proposed fix, drawn on screen 4: hide the prefix from customers entirely. Show 07, print 07, call "zero seven". Keep the prefix internal for staff and the audit trail. Two counters can then both show 07 — so pair it with position ("3 ahead of you") rather than relying on the number to imply order.

Board

Ready is bigger than Preparing — 64px against 52px. Only one of those columns needs reading from the back of a queue; the other is reassurance.

Wait times on the board are a trap (screen 5). Per-order estimates invite arguments when they slip, and they slip constantly. Drawn instead as one honest line at the bottom — "about 12 minutes right now" — which sets expectation without making a promise per person.

Numbers only. No names, ever (FLOW-120). The board is the one screen in the whole product a stranger can read, and a name plus a face is enough to collect someone else's food.

Stale board (screen 6) keeps its last known numbers and says so, rather than blanking — FD-OFF-4. A dark screen sends the whole queue to the counter at once.

Receipt

FD-PRINT-1 says "big order number" and thermal paper cannot do what that implies. 80mm is 48 characters; double-width halves it to 24. The number is drawn at the largest a printer actually offers, which is far smaller than the 86px on the confirm screen.

So the receipt's job is proof, not display. The customer reads their number off the counter screen or hears it; the paper is what they show if there is an argument.

58mm is the real constraint (screen 9). At 32 characters, item names with modifiers wrap badly. If cheap 58mm printers are what vendors buy, modifiers must be abbreviated at print time — an unsolved formatting job.

Screen 10 is the kitchen ticket — the paper fallback from ADR 0003. Same printer, different layout: no prices at all, modifiers huge, because a cook reads it at arm's length in a hurry.

Phone

Lookup is number-only and public — no login, no app. Anything else is friction a queue will not tolerate.

Which means anyone can look up any number. Screen 13 shows the deliberate answer: status only, never items, never totals, never names. A stranger learns that B07 is being cooked, which is worthless to them.

Untested: whether customers will use this at all. It costs data, and the board is three metres away. It may only earn its place for delivery and phone orders.

Still open

No sound or announcement design. The source discussion says noise makes audio useless, but nothing here handles a customer who is not looking at the board.

Board is English only. FD-I18N-1 applies here more than anywhere — this is the surface customers read, not staff.

Mama Cee Suya● Live

Cooking

B09B10A16B11

Ready — come and collect

B07A14B08

Collect at the side counter

Mama Cee Suya● Live

Cooking

B12A17B13A18B14B15A19B16A20B17B18A21

Ready — come and collect

B09A16B10B11

About 14 minutes from ordering right now

Mama Cee SuyaProblem screen

Cooking

A15B09A16B10

Ready — come and collect

B07A14B08

You are holding B09. Are you next, or twentieth? The prefix is meaningless to you, and the numbers do not run in order.

Mama Cee Suya● Live

Cooking

09 10 16 11

Ready — come and collect

07 14 08

Prefix hidden from customers · staff and receipts still record B09 · position shown on the phone instead of implied by the number

Mama Cee Suya● Live

Cooking

092 min 105 min 168 min 1111 min

Ready — come and collect

0714

Per-order times are drawn here to argue against them — every one is a promise you will break, in public, in front of the person holding it.

Mama Cee Suya● Not updating

Cooking

091016

Ready — come and collect

0714

This board stopped updating 3 minutes ago. Please ask at the counter — your food may already be ready.

MAMA CEE SUYA

14 Allen Avenue, Ikeja

0803 000 8268

YOUR NUMBER

B07

TAKEAWAY

1 Chicken Shawarma3,300

Large, medium, no onion

well done

2 Suya - Ram6,200

Hot, extra yaji

1 Coke 50cl800

Subtotal10,300

Pack200

TOTALN10,500

Cash15,000

Change4,500

27/07/26 12:41 Served by Blessing

Order 01JQ4XZ8 Counter B

Check your order: type B07 at

mamacee.food/b07

Thank you. Come again.

MAMA CEE SUYA

YOUR NUMBER

B07

↑ this is as large as an 80mm printer goes

TAKEAWAY 3 ITEMS

N10,500 PAID

Everything else — items, modifiers, change, time, staff — is on the full receipt overleaf. This half is what a customer glances at while walking away.

MAMA CEE SUYA

YOUR NUMBER

B07

TAKEAWAY

1 Chicken Shawar-

ma3,300

Lg,med,no onion,

well done

2 Suya - Ram6,200

Hot, extra yaji

1 Coke 50cl800

TOTALN10,500

27/07/26 12:41 Blessing

*** KITCHEN COPY ***

NO INTERNET - PAPER ONLY

B07

TAKEAWAY

1 CHICKEN SHAWARMA

** LARGE
** MEDIUM
** NO ONION
** WELL DONE

2 SUYA - RAM

** HOT
** EXTRA YAJI

1 COKE 50CL

12:41 COUNTER B

No prices. A cook does not need them.

Mama Cee Suya

Check your order

Type the number on your receipt. Nothing to install, no sign-in.

Your number

B07

✓

The board by the counter shows the same thing — this is for when you have stepped away.

Order B07

updates itself

B07

Cooking now

3 orders ahead of you
About 8 more minutes

Ordered → Cooking → Ready

Times can change if the kitchen gets busy. The board by the counter is always right.

Your order

Chicken Shawarma

Large · Medium · No onion

₦3,300

Suya — Ram

Hot · Extra yaji

₦6,200

Coke 50cl

₦800

Order B07

B07

Ready — collect it

Go to the side counter and say zero seven.

Please come soon — hot food does not stay good for long.

Order B44

B44

Cooking now

About 6 more minutes

This is someone else's order. Anyone can type any number, so this page shows the status and nothing else — no items, no total, no name, no phone.

A stranger learns that B44 is being cooked. That is worth nothing to them, and it is the reason the page needs no sign-in.

Only the person holding the receipt can see what was ordered — that view needs the code printed on it.