is a brand new Southeast Asian restuarant in Madison, WI. It had a soft opening and great success since January 2022
that allowed customers to order online and not pay extra fees on third-party services. Located on a large college campus, the owner knew this would drive business in.
being older in age did not have the knowledge or resources to create a website that was easy for customers to use
In order to best assist the owner in the short two week timeline, a few important questions had to be answered:
Diamonds Cafe uses a combination of options for dining. A variety of third-party apps, dining in, as well as different ways to order takeout. Customers typically ordered via these third-party apps, but the owner disapproved of the large price difference between customers who come to the restaurant and order takeout and those who use the apps. Due to service fees, they have no choice but to charge more on these apps.
3rd Party Advantages
3rd Party Disadvantages
The restaurant is located in the heart of downtown Madison, on a college campus. The restaurants direct competitors have the advantage of being in the area for years. It was important to research how they advertise their food ordering options as well as the presentation. While most websites were fairly outdated and unusable, it's hypothesized that most users prefer using third party apps as they can be more convenient.
Competitors Advantages
Competitors Disadvantages
To serve users best, a survey was sent out to our target audience to determine how to present the option for ordering via the website.
It's become obvious that due to modern conveniences, users prefer using third-party apps but a fair amount of users do still order directly from the source. The challenge now was to create a website that enticed users to use direct ordering vs third party.
Before designing, the constraints and complications needed to be taken into consideration.
1. The owner is elderly and has no experience with website building or management
2. The website host (Squarespace) must be easy to navigate for his daughter to manage/update it in the future.
3. It had to be finished within two weeks, in time for the grand opening event of the restaurant
4. The final design must be built within Squarespaces constraints. Which restricts a lot of layout options
A priority list was created for the first iteration of the design. Compiled data including wishes from the owners, secondary research, and common practices
The priority list took control for the mid-fi design. Using one of Squarespaces mandatory templates, the design was created in those constraints. The pages the owner absolutely wanted were "about," "menu," and "gallery." The menu and a style of gallery were included on the landing page to entice customers to order.
The question of "how might we get customers to order directly from the restaurant?" was answered by including a notice on all delivery sections of the website informing them of the price hike.
The mid-fi's were presented with a UI kit to give idea to how the website would look. The owner requested a feeling that was youthful but represented the culture in their foods. The menu being full of Southeast Asian foods, the colors we went with were shades of red and green to best compliment the different flavors and colors
