Tabs on a rail
Open tabs line the left like checks on a rail. Drinks ring in by pour size, each round is sent with a time and a name, and anything not sent yet is marked so it can’t be forgotten.
- Client
- An example. The tavern is made up.
- Made
- Bar register, Windows app, tablet and handheld app
- Status
- Example project, installable today
The brief
The Tin Heron doesn’t exist. It’s a full working example of a bar register, built for a made-up corner tavern in Chicago, to show what a bar gets when the system is designed for its room instead of bought off the shelf.
That meant a dark screen for service, names and totals big enough to read from a step back, and every common job one or two taps away, on the terminal, a tablet or a handheld.
What it does
Lights up for opening and closing
Service mode runs dark. Lights up is the daytime version for setting up and cashing out. It’s the bar’s own setting, so the terminal stays dark at night whatever the device would prefer.
A handheld for the floor
On a phone, the register becomes a handheld with one pane at a time: the open tabs, the menu, or the check, with the open check’s total always at the bottom.
The close-of-night sheet
Sales by section, tips by bartender, what the drawer should hold, and every comp and void with who did it and why.
Installs like a program
On a Windows bar terminal it installs as a regular program, with a Start menu shortcut and no internet needed. On tablets and phones it installs from the browser as an app that keeps working when the wifi drops.
The design
TABLE 6 $144.43
Rye, demerara, Angostura, orange. Sent 8:41 PM by Theo.
- Back-bar black #0e1012
- Bone #ede6d7
- Brass #e2a541
- Cherry #f08279
- Point of view
- A corner tavern after dark. A pressed-tin pattern sits behind the tab rail, and brass marks the one thing to press next. Nothing else gets it.
- Type
- Big Shoulders was drawn from Chicago signage, so it suits a Chicago bar. IBM Plex Sans handles everything read up close.
- Color
- Four colors from the room: back-bar black, bone like a paper check under bar lights, brass from the foot rail, and cherry for anything gone wrong or run out.
- Imagery
- Each drink key carries a small drawn glass for its pour, and the new-tab sheet shows stools along a brass rail.
How it was checked
- 52 color pairs pass WCAG AA in both lighting modes, checked by script.
- A whole shift is run by script at four sizes: counter, terminal, upright tablet and handheld.
- Automated tests cover the money: tax, splits, cash keys and happy hour.
- About 87 KB of JavaScript, and it keeps working with no connection.