TabX
Company Type
Startup
Industry
Hospitality technology & payments
Product Type
Mobile App
Services
Product Strategy, UX Design, UI Design
Deliverables
Stakeholder workshop, UX audit, user flows, wireframes, UI designs, interactive prototype, animations, and design system
Redesigning the mobile bar-tab experience from onboarding to closeout
TabX gives bar and restaurant guests a faster way to open, view, and close their tabs from their phones. Instead of handing over a physical card or waiting for a bartender when they are ready to leave, guests can manage payment through the app while continuing to order directly from the bar.
TabX brought LunarLab in to redesign its existing mobile app. The product already offered a useful, easy-to-understand concept, but its interface and core flows needed greater clarity, consistency, and polish. Our goal was to make the experience easier to navigate—from creating an account and finding a location to adding a payment method, opening a tab, and closing it at the end of the night.
Finding the friction in an already-useful idea
TabX solves a familiar problem: bar guests do not want to wait in another line simply to pay, and bartenders would rather spend their time serving customers than repeatedly closing checks. The existing app supported that exchange, but an audit revealed opportunities to make the experience feel clearer, faster, and more cohesive.
Feedback captured during the audit described the app as relatively simple to use while also noting that it could feel laggy and that the interface could be improved. The experience contained useful capabilities, but users needed stronger guidance through onboarding, account creation, payment setup, location discovery, and tab management.
We began with a stakeholder workshop to align on the product vision, business priorities, user needs, and important decisions. From there, we mapped improved user flows and used the audit findings to focus the redesign on the moments most likely to create hesitation or slow a guest down.
Making it easier to get started—and get to the bar
The original onboarding experience introduced TabX, collected account information, and prompted users to add a payment method. Each step worked, but the sequence and interface language left room for uncertainty.
We reworked the onboarding and account-creation flows to:
distribute introductory information across the experience instead of overloading the first screen;
distinguish account creation from signing into an existing account more clearly;
improve field organization and action labels;
give users clearer context when the app requests location access; and
make payment setup feel like a natural step toward opening a first tab.
These changes created a more intentional path into the product. Rather than asking guests to interpret the app as they moved through it, the redesigned flow explains what is needed, why it matters, and what comes next.
Helping guests find the right place and act quickly
Location is central to the TabX experience. Guests need to identify the bar or restaurant they are visiting before they can open a tab, but a map alone is not always the fastest way to find the right venue.
The redesign strengthened location discovery by adding search and improving the hierarchy of nearby locations. We also explored how location-aware notifications could alert guests to relevant specials and how available deals could receive greater visibility within the experience.
Once a guest selects a location, clearer prompts and payment guidance help them move into the primary task: opening a tab. The redesigned experience reduces ambiguity across the transition from browsing to payment setup to an active tab.
Bringing consistency to the entire tab experience
The work extended beyond isolated screens. LunarLab created a connected experience covering onboarding, account setup, location discovery, payment methods, opening a tab, viewing tab details, selecting a tip, and closing out.
Wireframes allowed us to establish hierarchy and interaction patterns before moving into the visual design. The final UI, prototype, and animations demonstrated how the experience should respond as guests progressed through each task. A supporting design system gave TabX a reusable foundation for maintaining consistency as the product evolved.
Together, these deliverables gave the TabX team a cohesive, implementation-ready vision rather than a collection of one-off interface updates.
A redesigned product, launched
The redesigned TabX app launched in summer 2026, with development completed by the TabX team.
The launch introduced clearer onboarding, more intentional account and payment setup, improved location discovery, stronger visibility for deals, and a more consistent experience across the full tab lifecycle. These improvements were designed to reduce uncertainty and help guests move through essential tasks more confidently.
Performance metrics and post-launch user feedback were not available when this case study was prepared, so no quantitative product or business outcomes are claimed here.
