HonestBites conceptualization

OVERVIEW

RESEARCH | DESIGN | BRANDING

STUDENT PROJECT

HonestBites is a restaurant management tool focusing on restaurant success through honest engagement and interactions between diners and restaurant owners.

For this project, I was tasked to create a web product from end-to-end.

Create an intuitive restaurant web management system while emphasizing engagement between restaurant owners and diners.

DESIGN CHALLENGE

ROLE

UX Designer

TIMELINE

10 Weeks

TOOLS

Figma, Google Suite

The process

My process for this project was split into four parts: discover, define, design, and deliver. The breakdown of the process is below:

Finding inspiration

Having worked in the restaurant industry for almost 8 years, I was inspired to create a tool that, at its root, fostered authentic relationships between restaurant owners, their workers, and their diners. Working in restaurants might seem physically demanding and stressful, but the relationships between diners and the business make it all worthwhile. As such, a tool that actively promotes fostering this relationship will be revolutionary for the industry. Especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, restaurants need access to additional tools now more than ever.

Existing tools, such as OpenTable, TripAdvisor, and Yelp were designed to primarily benefit the diner. HonestBites aims to change that and become the first digital tool focusing on growing restaurants through honest engagement and interaction with diners and communities.

BACKGROUND

I started this project with the discover phase, by identifying and researching competitor products. After some initial research, l I decided to conduct an in-depth competitive evaluation on Yelp, as it remains the most popular digital critic service available.

COMPETITOR EVALUATION - YELP

  • Yelp allows users to share their experiences and opinions about local businesses. This can provide valuable insights into the quality of services and products from real customers.

  • Yelp offers detailed information about businesses, including hours of operation, location, contact details, and photos. Users can make more informed decisions based on this information.

  • Businesses on Yelp are rated on a scale of one to five stars, making it easy for users to quickly access the overall satisfaction of customers.

PROS

  • Yelp's algorithm tends to highlight negative reviews, which can lead to businesses to have an unfair negative reputation.

  • Like other review platforms, Yelp has faced challenges with fake reviews. Businesses may try to boost their rating by posting positive reviews, while competitors or disgruntled individuals may post fake negative reviews.

  • Yelp uses a filtering algorithm to screen out potentially fake reviews, but it also may filter genuine reviews.

CONS

  • Existing restaurant management systems such as OpenTable, the interaction between owner and diner is limited.

  • Benefits from restaurant management systems are one-sided, either positive for the owner or diner.

  • Review applications such as Yelp and TripAdvisor serve as a primary source of new places to explore.

  • Review applications lack standardized systems to verify reviewers, potentially leading to biased, false reviews.

  • Review applications have an overemphasis on negative reviews to increase screen time.

RESEARCH TAKEAWAYS

Creating the blueprints

With the competitor evaluation complete, I had an understanding of what users expected from these types of products. Now, it was time to identify and define a project goal that served as the foundation of the design process for this project.

PROJECT GOAL

Create a digital restaurant management system where restaurants grow through continued interaction with their diners and communities.

After defining the goal, I shifted my attention back to the user and created a user persona of a restaurant owner who wants to enroll in HonestBites.

USER PERSONA

Vanessa Sanchez

  • Age: 34

  • Sex: Female

  • Education: Bachelor’s Degree

  • Occupation: Café Owner

  • Income: $150,000

  • Location: Pasadena, CA

DEMOGRAPHICS

  • Rising labor and operational costs

  • Lack of returning customers

PAIN POINTS

  • Increase community engagement

  • Return to pre-pandemic profits

  • Evaluate guest experience

  • Access to reliable diner feedback

NEEDS

Vanessa Sanchez was born and raised in Pasadena. In 2018, she took over ownership of a local café she used to frequent with her grandmother, called La Casa. With her culinary background, Vanessa introduced modern changes to the menu while still maintaining the integrity of the original. Her leadership made her café one of the most popular breakfast eateries in Los Angeles County. After the pandemic, Sanchez now struggles to make any profits with the rising operation and labor costs. Vanessa misses the days before when her eatery served as a local community hotspot for weekend brunches and events. She hopes to increase engagement with the community again to bounce back into success.

After creating the user persona, I designed a user journey map to gain deeper insight into the persona’s actions and thoughts at each stage.

USER JOURNEY MAP

Designing the product

With the initial research complete and the product goals and user persona defined, I started to create low-fidelity design concepts. When designing these concepts, I prioritized content and layout over aesthetics. Below are some example wireframes of key screens:

LOW FIDELITY DESIGNS

HOME

DINERS

COMMUNITY

PROMOTIONS

REVIEW

REVIEW RESPONSE

Product delivery

I then took the low-fidelity concepts and upgraded them to high-fidelity, focusing on establishing a clear brand identity throughout the designs. Using these high-fidelity wireframes, I created an interactive prototype into 5 separate task flows. The prototypes for each flow are found below:

PROTOTYPES

LOG-IN/ENROLL

START A PROMOTION

REVIEW FEEDBACK

COMMUNITY EVENT

MANAGE DINERS

Takeaways

HonestBites serves as the primary link between restaurants owners and diners. With features promoting constant engagement between owner and diners, restaurants can grow by becoming more ingrained in their communities. With HonestBites, restaurants can finally fully take advantage of the new digital era and leave a permanent presence on social media like no other.

For me, the greatest takeaway from this project is the importance of defining a structured process to guide the project flow. Defining a clear and structured process is critical when creating UI designs. It helps ensure a systematic approach to design, maintains consistency, and facilitates collaboration among team members. From setting design objectives to wireframing, prototyping, and testing, having a well-defined process streamlines the design workflow and ultimately leads to more effective and user-friendly UI designs.

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