designwithvcn

Nabata

Type

Website

Category

Website & Management System

The Problem

Getting a waiter's attention is unreliable

On a packed night, the only way to order is to wave someone down who is already managing five other tables. Most guests wait. Some leave. Either way, the venue loses.

Long waiting times damage the experience

From sitting down to getting served can take 20 minutes or more. That's not an occasional problem — it's the standard on any busy night, and guests carry that impression out the door with them.

Paying takes longer than it should

When guests are ready to leave, they have to reach out to the exact waiter who served them. Nobody else can close the bill. The table stays occupied, the guest gets frustrated, and the waiter gets pulled away from active orders to handle a payment that should have taken 30 seconds.

Price inflation by staff

Some waiters charge more than the menu price and pocket the difference. Guests rarely push back in a busy environment, so it goes unnoticed — until the venue starts losing regulars who don't know why they stopped coming back.

Nabata's Goal

Nabata's goal is straightforward, to replace the manual, frustrating, and error-prone service process that most Nigerian hospitality venues still run on today. Long waiting times, price inflation by staff, and zero visibility for owners are not unique problems. They play out every night in bars across Lagos, lounges in Abuja, and hotels in Port Harcourt. Nabata exists to close those gaps digitally, giving every person in the venue; guest, waiter, and owner exactly what they need to have a better experience.

Design process

This process involves understanding user needs and business goals, conducting research, creating wireframes and visual designs, testing with users, iterating based on feedback, and collaborating with development teams to deliver an intuitive, user-centered product.

Step

Understand

User Research

User Interview

Competitve Analysis

Step

Define

User Personas

Empathy Map

User Journey

Step

Ideate

User Flow

Information Architecture

Step

Design

Wireframe

Hi-Fi Designs

Prototype

Step

Test

Feedbacks

Conclusion

Future Concept

Meet the users

Real people, real problems. These personas shaped every decision

made in designing Nabataa

Bar & Lounge Owner

Chidi Okafor

Waiter

Emeka Nwosu

Guest

Sade Adeyemi

Design Approach & Proposed Solution

A brief walkthrough of the thinking behind Nabata the real-world problem that sparked the idea, the three users it was built for, and the solution proposed before a single screen was designed.

Defining the Problem

Space

The problem came from personal experience, sitting at a bar, unable to get a waiter's attention, waiting too long to pay, and being overcharged with no way to verify it. That frustration was the brief.

Three users were at the centre of it: the guest who couldn't order, the waiter who had no structure, and the owner who had no visibility. The solution had to work for all three at once.

Design principles

established for Nabata

Zero effort for the guest

A first-time user had to be able to scan the QR code and place an order within 60 seconds, with no guidance needed.

Glanceable for the waiter

The waiter interface had to communicate the table number and order details at a glance, without the waiter having to read through a wall of information between tasks.

Control, not complexity, for the owner

The dashboard had to surface what mattered immediately, keep active issues visible, and push everything else to the background.

What this led to

These principles shaped every design decision that followed — the layout of the guest menu, the structure of the waiter's notification and order pop-up, the hierarchy of the owner's dashboard. The design wasn't decorative. Every choice traced back to one of those three users and one of those three principles.

Nabata didn't start as a software project. It started as a question: what would the hospitality experience look like if it actually worked for everyone in the room? The design was the answer.

User Task flow

A step-by-step look at how users move through Nabata from entry point to goal,

with no unnecessary detours.

Guest's user flow

From scanning a QR code to receiving the order placed

Waiter's user flow

From viewing an order to delivering the order right to the customer

Low Fidelity Wireframes

A closer look at the screens that define how Nabata works from first tap to final transaction.

Guest's Screens

The guest's interface

Waiter's Screens

The waiter's interface that enables the waiter to carry out tasks

Owner's Dashboard

An overview of the entire operation

Featured Screens

A closer look at the screens that define how Igree works from first tap to final transaction.

Guest's Interface

Placing an order

This section walks users through Placing an order on Nabata

Waiter's Interface

Accepting an Order

This section walks through the Waiter's interface on Nabata,

Owner's Interface

Owner's Dashboard

This section walks through the Owner's dashboard on Nabata

Nabata's Impact on

Nigerian Bars, Lounges

& Hotels

Guests

Ordering no longer depends on catching a waiter's attention in a crowded room. Prices are transparent and fixed. Paying is a single tap rather than a 20-minute search for the right person. The experience of going out becomes what it was always supposed to be enjoyable.

Waiters

The job becomes manageable. Every order arrives as a notification with full details. Nothing gets missed, nothing gets written down incorrectly, and performance is tracked automatically which means the waiters doing their job well finally have something

to show for it.

Owners

Nabata delivers something most Nigerian venue owners have never had real visibility. They can see which tables are most active, which staff are performing, which menu items are driving revenue, and where orders are falling through. That kind of data turns gut-feel decisions into informed ones.