Safe Dining

Service design white paper · SCAD SERV 727 · 2025

For 33 million Americans with food allergies, eating out is an act of trust. We studied the whole system that is supposed to carry allergy information from supplier to plate, found where it gets lost, and proposed six fixes that move restaurants from managing risk to building trust.

Course:: SERV 727 Visualizing Services, SCAD · Prof. Sunghan Kim
Team:: Four — Riley Chen, Soumya Buttan, Minwei Wu, Alexandra Backlund
Timeline:: Fall 2025
Research:: 12 interviews, a survey, field observation, 2 co-creation workshops
Made:: 82-page white paper, ecosystem map, journey map, storyboard and video

01 · Ecosystem map

Many players, one shared responsibility.

Poster “Who Keeps the Meal Safe?”: key stakeholders from diner to national regulators, an ecosystem map of the actors around a food-allergy customer linked by regulation, service and information, the micro, meso and macro levels, and four key insights.

02 · Customer journey map

Between anxiety and assurance.

03 · How we got there

Designed with the people at the table.

Facilitating a co-creation workshop: classmates stand in a circle holding role cards, with a persona list on the screen and an impact–effort grid on the whiteboard. — Every classmate plays a role in the meal: diner, server, manager, cook, supplier.

Workshop participants laughing as they post sticky notes on a glass wall. — Then the sticky notes go up.

03 · The research, page by page

Six pages from the appendix.

04 · Opportunity areas

Turn risk into confidence.

Team Safe Dining: Riley Chen, Soumya Buttan, Minwei Wu, Alexandra Backlund. SERV 727 Visualizing Services, SCAD, Fall 2025. The work shown is the team’s.