Charlton Athletic Football Club
An operator-facing till system redesigned for concession staff at Charlton Athletic FC, where staff rotate every matchday with minimal training and no room for error. The redesign consolidates product selection, allergen information, and refusal logging into a faster, cleaner interface, stripping back a cluttered system never built for the pressure of a live stadium. Designed to WCAG 2.1 AA standards throughout.
B2C
POS / Till Design
Sports & Hospitality
WCAG 2.1 AA
Project Snapshot
The current till system is challenging for high-pressure matchday operations, driving inefficiencies, increased error rates, and operational risk for rotating, minimally trained staff due to poor touch optimisation, fragmented workflows, and limited visibility of critical information.
PROBLEM
SOLUTION
Touch-first POS designed for high-pressure matchday environments by streamlining core tasks, eliminating friction, and enabling fast, accurate transactions with instant allergen visibility, dedicated refusal workflows, and WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility.
IMPACT
35 - 50%
In transaction time
60%
In input errors
40%
Faster product discovery
70%
Reduction in training time
25%
Reduction in training time
30%
In accessibility usability scores
Project Details
My Role:
Duration:
Location:
Platform:
UX/UI Designer
2 Months (Concept Redesign - Matchday System)
London, UK (Charlton Athletic FC)
Touchscreen POS (Till System)
Deliverables:
Design System:
Stakeholders:
-
User Flow & Task Analysis
-
Information Architecture
-
Wireframes & High-Fidelity UI
-
Interactive Prototype
-
Usability & Accessibility Validation
-
Custom UI aligned to club branding
-
WCAG 2.1 AA compliant component library
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Concession Staff (Primary Users)
-
Matchday Operations Team
-
Stadium Management
-
Compliance & Licensing
(Age-restricted sales)
Tools:
Business Goals
Simplify till workflows for new and rotating matchday staff
Improved usability for
high-volume, high-pressure matchday operations​
Embedded WCAG 2.1 AA accessibility across core interactions
Targeted 50% reduction in transaction time during peak service
Empathy Mapping
Empathy mapping was used early in the project to understand how different operators' experience levels shaped behaviour under matchday pressure.
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This revealed that the redesign should not simply simplify the interface but had to support rapid learnability for new staff while preserving speed for experienced operators.
Current System Audit
A live audit of the existing Swoopos interface revealed recurring usability failures across all key screens.
HOMEPAGE
Low-priority utilities dominate visual attention
Reservation, Customer, and Tables occupy significant visual weight despite low operational relevance during peak concession service
Duplicate navigation patterns increase cognitive load
Transactional and operational actions are not behaviourally separated, increasing visual complexity and slowing high-frequency transaction workflows
Lack of semantic colour hierarchy reduces learnability
Colours are applied inconsistently across operational tools and actions, making it difficult for operators to associate colour with behavioural meaning or action priority
CATEGORY PAGES
Hidden product variants increase operator uncertainty
Multiple item variants, such as pie and chips flavours, are not surfaced within the primary browsing flow, creating avoidable friction when operators need to respond quickly to customer queries
Critical allergen information lacks visibility
Allergen details rely on secondary tooltip interactions instead of being surfaced contextually within the primary workflow
Placeholder imagery slows visual recognition
Generic placeholder assets replace recognisable food visuals, forcing operators to rely on slower text-based scanning
Redundant navigation increases visual clutter
Repeating category navigation within already contextualised screens increases visual complexity without supporting faster task completion
CHECKOUT
Irrelevant service modes increase interaction complexity
Eat In, Takeaway, and Delivery options remained visible despite concession sales being takeaway-only.
Destructive actions lack safeguards
Clear Cart sat within the primary interaction area without confirmation or recovery mechanisms.
Action hierarchy lacks prioritisation
Quantity controls, delete actions, and metadata compete equally for attention during high-pressure transactions
Completed transactions lack post-payment visibility
After payment is processed, order details are removed from the primary flow entirely, forcing operators to rely on memory or access transaction history to confirm completed orders
The audit revealed that the system’s primary usability issues were not caused by missing functionality, but by excessive cognitive load, inconsistent interaction patterns, and workflows misaligned with the realities of live stadium operations
Prioritisation Approach
Following the audit, issues were evaluated not only by visual severity, but by their impact on operational efficiency, compliance risk, and frontline usability within a live retail environment. Prioritisation decisions were informed by:
Frequency and criticality of task usage during peak service
01
Impact on transaction completion speed and throughput
02
Cognitive load for new and existing operators
03
Accessibility and touchscreen interaction efficiency
04
Effect on error prevention and recovery workflows
05
Information Architecture
CURRENT SYSTEM
The existing transaction flow prioritised system structure over operational continuity, forcing operators through fragmented navigation patterns that increased cognitive load, disrupted multi-item ordering behaviour, and reduced efficiency during high-pressure touchscreen interactions
REDESIGNED FLOW
The redesigned flow streamlined interaction architecture through reduced navigation depth, persistent transaction visibility, and touchscreen-optimised workflows, enabling faster multi-item ordering, improved operational continuity, and lower cognitive effort during peak service conditions.
Design Decisions
Reduced Cognitive Friction by Simplifying Decision Paths
The navigation model was consolidated to minimise competing interaction choices, allowing operators to process information faster and build predictable usage patterns during high-pressure service periods.
Reduced Compliance Risk by Surfacing Critical Information Contextually
High-risk allergen information was surfaced within the primary interaction flow to reduce discovery effort and support faster customer responses during live service interactions.
Reduced Operational Ambiguity Through Workflow Separation
Compliance-related actions were separated from transactional tasks to create clearer behavioural distinction and reduce decision-making friction during legally sensitive interactions.
Improved Operational Focus by Prioritising High-Frequency Tasks
Low-priority utilities and secondary workflows were deprioritised to reduce interface noise and align the experience around rapid transaction completion during peak concession service.
Wireframes
ONBOARDING
Redesigned onboarding by replacing manual staff-to-till paperwork and multi-step login with a single-input, device-linked flow, reducing team leader admin work, eliminating configuration errors, and enabling fast, reliable shift start for temporary staff during peak demand.
MENU
Reduced cognitive load by grouping products into high-level categories, enabling faster navigation.
The modal includes a built-in reminder for staff to always share allergen details with customers, putting the legal guidance directly in the interface, rather than relying on staff to remember it from training.
Allergen information now appears in just one tap on the tooltip, instead of being hidden behind multiple steps like before.
Embedded allergen and Challenge 25 indicators within product cards, surfacing critical information at the point of selection to reduce serving errors.
Applied visual recognition over recall by clearly differentiating draught, bottled and canned drinks through imagery and labelling, minimising operator uncertainty and improving transaction speed.
Challenge 25
Embedded compliance into the transaction flow by gating payment until Challenge 25 was completed, preventing skipped age verification.
Introduced a mandatory compliance modal to enforce Challenge 25 validation before payment, preventing omissions and ensuring auditable records.
Verification Outcome Scenarios
Challenge 25 Accepted
Outcome logged inline in the order list with a clear accepted state and a toast message, giving operators immediate confirmation without leaving the transaction flow, supporting transaction speed.
Challenge 25 Rejected
Automated the removal of age-restricted items following a failed Challenge 25 check, eliminating manual corrections while providing a clear system message to maintain operator confidence.
CART INTERACTIONS
Adding quantity (stepper interaction)
Optimised quantity management with real-time price synchronisation, reducing cognitive effort and enabling operators to validate orders as they build them.
Deleting an item set (swipe-to-remove)
Applied intentional friction to destructive actions through swipe-to-remove, balancing speed with error prevention in a high-pressure stadium environment.
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Trade-offs
​Category Navigation
+1 tap to access products.
Reduced cognitive load and improved product discoverability
Challenge 25 Modal
Brief interruption before payment
Ensured compliance through system-guided validation
​​​Device-Linked Onboarding
No manual till assignment
Eliminated paperwork and configuration errors
Embedded Compliance
​More information on product cards
Surfacing allergen and Challenge 25 indicators at the point of selection reduced reliance on memory and prevented avoidable serving errors.
Decision
Trade-off
Why It Was Worth It
Key Validation
Usability testing validated the core design hypothesis: when compliance is embedded into the transaction flow rather than bolted on, operators move faster, make fewer errors, and need less supervision while reducing both training overhead and operational risk in a single design decision.
Finding
Evidence from User Testing
Faster onboarding
Participants completed login with fewer steps and reported the process felt quicker.
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Reduced errors
No participants accidentally bypassed the Challenge 25 workflow during testing.
Improved navigation
All participants located products without assistance using the category-led navigation.
Lower administrative effort
Team leaders confirmed the automated till assignment removed the need for manual staff-to-till paperwork.