Casa del Chef
scope of work: UX – UI – Visual design
tools: pen & paper, Adobe Photoshop, Figma
project duration: October’21 – November’21
PROJECT BASICS
Background
Casa del Chef is a fine dining restaurant willing to extend its services also to those customers who, for different reasons, cannot (or don’t want to) eat at the restaurant. The app was to target customers who value extraordinary food (and can afford it), but who are short on time, or have other reasons for eating at home.
Challenge
The goal of the project was to focus on the users and their needs, and to ensure their positive user experience. That meant creating an app that would not only be inviting, clean, and easy to use, but also accessible and meeting the needs of users with impairments, including special dietary needs. Also, because of the restaurant’s character, the app was to stand out from the crowd of other apps, mostly offering food of average quality.
Solution
The key to success was communication with users and finding out as much as possible about their needs, wants and expectations. It was obvious from the start that research would be of great importace at all stages, but great effort had to be put into the foundational research, on insights from which the whole design process would be based. Also, any assumption as to how a perfect food ordering app should look like, must be put aside in order not to interfere with the research insigts.
PROJECT TIMELINE
RESEARCH
In order for the app to be successful, it must respond to users’ needs and wants, so it was crucial to get to know the users, learn what drives them, and also how they might be responding to available apps and websites similar to mine.
I conducted my research basing on four main research goals.
RESEARCH GOALS
Who orders food online?
What, where, when and why do they order?
Who and why does not order food online?
What, where, when and why would help them change their mind?
What aspect of a food ordering app can help people in solving their everyday problems?
When, where and why can it help?
What food ordering apps/websites are present on the market?
What, when, where and why makes them successful (or not)?
RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES
PRELIMINARY SURVEYS
To gain insight into how often our target users order food, what sort of food do they order and in what types of situations, a preliminary survey was sent out.
General insight: Survey results revealed that most participants order food to save time. In most cases they order simple food, often because they don’t consider ordering fine restaurant food possible, or because they don’t place their orders in advance and want the food to be delivered ASAP.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
In order to learn more about food-ordering habits and scenarios, secondary research was held based on available sociological studies and observations results.
General insight: The results of studies and observations show that as ordering food is becoming more and more popular, customers’ expectations grow and new options are looked for, as well for food choices and its quality, as the ordering apps’ functionality.
INTERVIEWS
To obtain in-depth gualitative responses regarding the key aspects of the challenge, 12 interviews were held with pre-screened participants
General insight: The results showed that many participants were not entirely happy with their experience concerning ordering food. The main reasons pointed out by the participants were: the quality of food, lack of information on ingredients, too short or too long menus, complicated app navigation.
COMPETITIVE AUDIT
To learn about different food ordering services present on the market, 5 apps and websites were chosen for the competitive audit.
General insight: The competitive audit provided valuable information allowing to identify gaps in existing services, and also opportunities for the Casa del Chef app.
Throughout the research I learned about various user behaviors and general characteristics. Groups of people with similar behaviors and thought processes were the reference for developing a set of archetypes which later were layered with more specific characteristics and turned into personas. By developing personas, I was able to identify pain points in various scenarios.
PERSONAS
PAIN POINTS
Knowing more about the users and their problems, I could start thinking about setting my design principles for this project. Some of these principles are my all-timers and I always use them, while some others are more project specific.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
People first: design for needs
Answer users’ questions before they are asked
Help users save on time, not on experience
Emphasize imagery over excessive text
Make the design simple, not primitive
Design, test, iterate, repeat
EARLY DESIGN
FIRST SET OF DIGITAL WIREFRAMES
DESIGN, TEST, ITERATE
During the early stage of the design process, numerous testing sessions were held with the use of low fidelity prototypes in order to ensure the product was usable and well-received by users.
Research insights were prioritized and addressed in later design iterations.
1. – The top slider with suggested meals was causing confusion – it is replaced with a single image
2. – According to tests’ participants the images of meals were not big enough – after the iteration they are significantly larger
3. – Excessive text was removed
4. – Large icons were introduced in order to make the dietary info clearer
5. – ‘View Cart’ button was redesigned in order to make it more obvious, as during tests some users had problems noticing it
6. – An option of setting preferred delivery/pickup time was introduced.
WORKING FURTHER ON THE DESIGN
While working on the app’s usability, I also started to work on the style guidelines. The app is quite simple and it does not require oversized design system, nevertheless it is necessary to design a set of assets, as this will help with keeping the design consistent and clear throughout the app.
STYLE GUIDELINES
FINAL DESIGN
Studying the target audience of the app and their needs, wants and expectations, I quickly understood that as much as the app should help people save on time, it shouldn’t do so by limiting the experience associated with fine dining. At a restaurant, choosing meals from the menu and then ordering them is for many people an exciting part of dining ritual, of which they do not want to be deprived and which they often miss when ordering online.
The menu in the app resembles restaurant menus, and it allows users to choose ho they want to go through the ordering process. The categories are clear, and it is easy to see all the meals. Big images allow users to see a meal rather than read about it (great photography is a must here!), and clear and obvious dietary info is helpful for users with special dietary needs. The meals can be added to the order quickly, but users get the possibility of discovering the offer in their own time, just like they would do at a restaurant.
To make ordering food even less frustrating for users with specific needs, there is an option of leaving a note for the chef, indicating users’ preferences (like ‘no salt’ or ‘I would like my steak very rare’).
When it comes to the visual side of the design, the priority was to keep the app clean and uncluttered, to let users comfortably choose what they really want without feeling pressure or frustration.
OUTCOME
CONTEXT ABOVE ALL
Casa del Chef, unlike many other places offering food delivery, is a fancy restaurant serving top quality food, and this aspect had to be considered when designing the app. The app is a good reflection of the restaurant’s positioning, and it also reflects the expectations of potential users who want the ordering process be as great an experience as enjoying the food itself – and as the research showed, a considerable number of users are turned off by those ordering apps that look like many others, use flashy colors and are cluttered with a lot of small images and too much of text. The design process of the app was a great lesson of how a designer should focus on users and their needs and wants, instead of blindly following examples of similar apps, even those highly ranked. Each situation is different, and one always needs to find the right context for their design.
NEXT STEPS
The app’s functionality is quite simple at the moment, but the general idea for it was to polish the core functionality before adding new features.
There is quite some space for upgrading the app in the future. According to research insights, the next steps should be introducing an advanced order tracking feature as well as an in-app messaging system allowing users to easily communicate with the restaurant.
© Jagna Birecka, 2021
Other projects:
