Tip Pooling
Empowering restaurant workers with same-day tip payouts through automated pooling
— Company
Branch
— Timeline
6 months
— Tools Used
Figma
— Project Background
For restaurant employees, tips are a critical part of their income, but Miller’s Ale House’s existing tip distribution process was inconsistent, time-consuming, and lacked transparency. With 80 locations and approximately 200 employees per restaurant, the reliance on Aloha POS for credit card tip processing created challenges that impacted both employees and managers.
Employees struggled with:
Unreliable payouts – Cash-based distributions often led to errors and missing tips.
Lack of visibility – There was no clear way to see how tips were calculated or distributed.
Managers faced:
Increased workload – Manual reconciliation added unnecessary complexity and delayed payments.
Compliance risks – Without automated tracking, staying aligned with wage laws was challenging.
— The Solution
As the UX Designer on this initiative, I focused on creating a seamless, transparent, and user-friendly experience for tip distribution. The redesign prioritized clarity, automation, and accessibility to ensure employees had real-time insight into their earnings while reducing friction for managers.
Moved to digital payouts – Ensuring secure, accurate, and timely distributions.
Provided real-time tracking – Allowing employees to instantly see their tip shares.
Ensured fair distribution – Automating tip allocation based on clear, predefined rules.
Reduced administrative tasks – Streamlining reconciliation and compliance tracking.
Improved trust and satisfaction – Giving employees confidence in how their tips were managed.
How might we create a seamless and transparent tip pooling system that ensures fair, real-time payouts while reducing administrative burden for restaurant managers?
My Role & Process: Leading UX from Concept to Prototype
As the Product Designer, I led the UX efforts for this feature from initial discovery through to high-fidelity prototyping. My process involved:
User Research: Conducted in-depth interviews with Miller's managers and employees to understand their current tip processes, pain points, and needs. This uncovered the hidden complexities and frustrations of the manual system.
Workflow Mapping: Visualized existing workflows to identify critical friction points and opportunities for automation and improvement.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Partnered closely with Product Managers to define feature scope and prioritize requirements, and with Engineering to ensure technical feasibility and data flow integration with Aloha POS.
Prototype Presentation & Feedback: Designed and iterated on Figma prototypes, which I presented to both internal Branch teams and external stakeholders at Miller's Ale House. This allowed us to validate concepts and gather crucial feedback on usability and clarity.
Key design features:
Intuitive Tip Tracking Dashboard – Designed a real-time interface where employees could instantly view their tip shares, earnings history, and payout details.
Clear, Fair Distribution Logic – Simplified complex tip allocation rules into an easy-to-understand breakdown, improving transparency and trust.
Seamless Digital Payout Experience – Streamlined the transition from cash-based tips to automated digital payments, ensuring accuracy and reliability.
Manager-Friendly Controls – Reduced administrative burden with clear reconciliation tools, automated compliance tracking, and a simplified approval process.
Mobile-Optimized Access – Ensured employees could check their tips anytime, anywhere, reinforcing accessibility and engagement.
By focusing on a user-centered design approach, the new system not only improved the tip distribution process but also enhanced employee confidence and satisfaction.
Considerations: Compliance & Scalability
Throughout the design process, we kept key considerations in mind:
Compliance Readiness: The system's design incorporates structures to support compliance with varying federal and state wage laws, ensuring accurate, exportable records.
Organizational Scaling: The architecture allows for a hierarchical model (groups, locations) and granular admin permissions, supporting bulk onboarding and location management crucial for a large enterprise like Miller's Ale House.
Expected Outcomes & Potential Impact
While the system is currently in its prototype phase, we anticipate significant positive outcomes and impact upon launch:
Expected Transparent Payouts: By providing clear, detailed breakdowns of tip distribution, we expect to foster stronger trust and satisfaction among employees.
Reduced Administrative Burden: Managers will save countless hours previously dedicated to manual reconciliation, allowing them to focus on operational excellence and employee development.
Improved Compliance: Automated, accurate record-keeping will significantly reduce compliance risks and simplify auditing processes.
Future-Ready Operations: The digital system prepares Miller's Ale House for a seamless transition to fully cashless operations, aligning with modern consumer trends.
Learnings & Reflection
This project was an incredible learning experience in:
Simplifying Complexity: Transforming intricate financial rules and manual processes into an intuitive and usable UI.
Building for Trust: Designing a system where clarity and transparency are paramount, especially when dealing with people's earnings.
Cross-Functional Collaboration: Deepening my ability to work closely and effectively with product managers, engineers, and operational stakeholders to deliver a robust solution.
This experience, particularly around making shared finances easy, fair, and transparent, directly maps to my passion for designing solutions that empower users financially and operationally.