A collaborative application of design thinking and Taguchi approach in restaurant service design for food wellbeing

Abstract

PurposeInnovative restaurant service designs impart food wellbeing to diners. This research comprehends customer aspirations and concerns in a restaurant-dining experience to develop a service design that enhances the dining experience using the design thinking approach and evaluates its efficiency using the Taguchi method of robust design.Design/methodology/approachThe sequential incidence technique defines diners' needs, which, followed by brainstorming sessions, helped create multiple service designs with important attributes. Prototype narration, as a scenario, acted as the stimulus for evaluators to respond to the WHO-5 wellbeing index scale. Scenario-based Taguchi experiment with nine foodservice attributes in two levels and the wellbeing score as the response variable helped identify levels of critical factors that develop better FWB.FindingsThe study identified the best combination of factors and their preferred levels to maximize FWB in a restaurant. Food serving hygiene, followed by information about cuisine specification, and food movement in the restaurant, were important to FWB. The experiment revealed that hygiene perceptions are critical to FWB, and service designs have a significant role in it. Consumers prefer detailed information about the ingredients and recipe of the food they eat; being confident that there will be no unacceptable ingredients added to the food inspires their FWB.Research limitations/implicationsTheoretically, this study contributes to the growing body of literature on design thinking and transformative service research, especially in the food industry.Practical implicationsThis paper details a simple method to identify and evaluate important factors that optimize FWB in a restaurant. The proposed methodology will help service designers and technology experts devise settings that consider customer priorities and contribute to their experience.Originality/valueThis study helps to understand the application of design thinking and the Taguchi approach for creating robust service designs that optimize FWB.

Research Journeys to Net Zero

“…The SME wanted to turn around the restaurant side of the business and had provided a brief to the RAE project coordinators as 'rethinking the business concept'. One of the valuable additional user-centric aspects of service design is using tools through a sequential process that uncovers pain points and wow moments in a service (Zomerdijk & Voss, 2010;Rejikumar et al, 2022). As a design educator, I was seconded to the company for two months, split into two sessions of four weeks each.…”

SDG commentary: services that enable well-being of the human species

“…3.2 Hunger, food security and nutrition in the service literature While research on health care and health service systems has received significant attention in research years, literature on reducing hunger in services research is sparce, with a small focus on "food well-being" in service design of restaurants (Rejikumar et al, 2022) and food experiences (Batat and Addis, 2021). However, this does not speak to reducing hunger, rather on increasing profits by commercial organizations.…”

Co-creation through non-dyadic service experiences using service design

“…This research uses a service design approach with a focus on value-in-use thanks to the consumer at the centre of the service experience. Due to its customer-centric approaches, service design is gaining in popularity to explore FWB ( Rejikumar et al., 2022 ; Batat and Addis, 2021 ; Addis et al., 2022 ). Value-in-use evolves from the service-dominant logic literature and assumes that organisations can only offer value propositions, as true value is determined by its beneficiaries ( Vargo and Lusch, 2008 ).…”