Kitchen Story
Revamped the website | Restaurant Website | Mixed Method Research
My Role - UX Design // Visual Design
Date - 2021
Scope - Brand Identity, User Experience, Packaging, Graphics Design
Tools Used - Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe XD
Kitchen Story is Steven Choi's tenth restaurant, tucked into San Francisco's Castro district, blending California flavors (avocado, cilantro, spice) with Asian influences. It's best known for the dish that made it Instagram-famous: Millionaire's Bacon, thick, spicy-sweet slabs people happily wait 40 minutes for.
This project is a website design concept for the restaurant. Since the web is usually the first place people look before deciding where to eat, a well-designed site is one of the easiest ways to turn a search into a walk through the door.
Problem
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Website has a lot of interaction design issues such as visibility, navigation, affordance, and feedback. This makes the user experience frustrating and inconsistent.
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This restaurant has received numerous good reviews on Yelp, Open Table, and Google reviews. However, this reviews are not mentioned anywhere on the website. Users would usually search online before visiting the restaurant.
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As a restaurant website, users would ike to look at the menu before visiting the restaurant. Currently, they have an image of their menu on the site and huge images with no context. This doesn’t look appealing and is hard to read due to small font size.
Solution
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Improving the customer experience by simplifying and arranging the elements to make it more intuitive and easy to use while making it faster for customers to get what they're searching for and achieve their objectives and also maintaining the brands' values.
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Designing a section that showcases top reviews about the restaurant fetched from Open Table, Yelp, and Google reviews will create a social profile. This will help build a trust and confidence among potential customers as personal recommendations and word-of-mouth are much more powerful.
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Creating a section that showcases clean and appealing menu will attract more users to the restaurant. This will give a good sense of the restaurant offerings.
Struggles
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Content organization: Restaurants often have a lot of information to share, such as menu items, specials, hours of operation, and more. Finding the right balance between providing enough information and not overwhelming the user can be challenging.
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Menu Navigation: Presenting a restaurant's menu in a clear, organized, and easily accessible manner is crucial. Users should be able to easily find what they're looking for and get a good sense of the restaurant's offerings.
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User Engagement: Engaging users and keeping them on the website can be a challenge. This can be done through features such as photo galleries, interactive menus, and social media integrations.
User Personas
Photo Addict
Age: 23
Graduate Student
She wants to go to a place that is fun and relaxing. Place where she can take awesome photos for her social media. She is usually busy and just needs a place where she can hang-out with her friends and family.
Work Oriented
Age: 34
Software Engineer
The meeting oriented software engineer who is always busy with his work and loves to try new cuisines. He is usually busy and can’t cook, hence likes to get something that is healthy and quick.
The Family Guy
Age: 67
Local Business Man
This person wants to spend just a little time with his family. The biggest frustration is not finding a reservation easily and waiting in queues for long hours.
Site Map
Branding
Takeaways
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The needs of users and clients should be the foundation of design efforts.
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Being efficient with any tool, such as Figma, will allow you to spend more time on ideas and research.