Designing Bar George App with
In this case study, I identified a challenge with Bar George website, which wasn’t meeting the needs of customers for online reservations.
To address this, I designed the feature to allow for more flexible online reservations like selecting their table locations and adding notes for special occasions, enhancing user engagement and product value.
Designing Bar George Application
In this case study, I identified a challenge with Bar George website, which wasn’t meeting the needs of customers for online reservations.
To address this, I designed a feature to allow for more flexible online reservations like selecting their table locations and adding notes for special occasions, enhancing user engagement and product value.
Project Overview
I started this project inspired by the growing online restaurant reservation apps during the pandemic. Its primary objective was to empower customers to reserve tables and pre-order meals, thus enhancing their dining experience in a safe and seamless manner.
Role • UX Research, Visual Design, Interaction, Prototyping & Testing
Tools • Figma, Miro, Notion, Maze
Duration • April – June 2021
Problems
Through the research I found that the increasing trend of online table reservations had led to several key problems:
1- Unsupported
Bar George’s website had no online reservation feature. This mean that people had to using third-party app or calling the restaurant directly to make reservations, leading to frustration and inconvenience.
2- Unintuitive
People found the website not user-friendly when it comes to the takeout feature and online ordering process.
3- Untrustworthy
Despite having reservations, people experienced excessive waiting times for seating upon arrival. There were delays in receiving service and getting their bills.
Opportunity
Research & Explanation
What methods of UX research will I use to help drive clarity and focus to my solution, and why?
My research included competitive analysis to better understand the user experience of restaurant reservation platforms, and the flows of luxury bar and restaurants. User surveys helped me identify the right variables for reserving a table, and their motivating factors. Lastly, one-on-one interviews provided qualitative and emotional insight into key points of users’ journeys.
Tools • Figma, Miro, Notion, Maze, Trello
It is important to get a big picture of the market.
I decided to send out a survey via social media and was able to get more than 60 responses from people who regularly do online reservation and food ordering. The user survey responses helped me to find out what they’re hoping to achieve and what their preferences, and behaviours. Interviews were conducted with individuals who frequent go to luxury bars and prefer to make reservations ahead of time.
Survey key outcomes and interview questions
It is really important to research other bar restaurants in the neighbourhood and third parties reservation platform they use, as their products will help me gather insights about their strengths and weaknesses. These insights also help me identify any gaps in features that Bar George might address for its users. I analyzed 3 indirect and 1 direct competitors as shown below, who are Bar George’s main direct competitor in terms of cuisine, atmosphere, target demographic and indirect competitors who are providing the reservation process for the restaurant.
Competitor Analysis including insights from 4 direct/indirect competitors
Summarizing Research/Takeaways
What did I take away from my research?
Research Synthesis
User Personas
After I compiled the outtakes from the research into the affinity map, I was able to create a persona that represents the main user group.
User persona
Exploring Common Tasks in Order to Heighten User Empathy
By creating and exploring the journey maps of two personas and their typical tasks, I uncovered key emotional/procedural moments that Bar George needs to add. The anxiety in someone might feel, for example, if they’re worried their specific notes will be missed by the staff. Or the frustration might sense when they arrive at the restaurant and find out their reservation is mixed-up. To ensure the website would work, it would need to overcome these problems … and not introduce new points of friction.
User Journey map
Goals
I converted the key problems into opportunities to solve for during the design.
The online reservation feature eliminates the need for third-party apps or phone bookings. Customers can easily select preferred dates, times, and table preferences which will improve overall customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.
Improve customer satisfaction and increase online takeout orders by creating a seamless and intuitive user experience on the website/app.
The goal is to significantly reduce waiting times for customers with reservations, ensuring prompt seating upon arrival and timely service throughout their dining experience.
Solution
Create an online reservation feature that includes table selection, and precise timing prompts.
Task flows for online reservation and order take out food
Information Architecture
Onboarding high-fid screens
Regular dining reservation high-fid screens
Share the reservation with guests and add to calendar high-fid screens
Things that I learned
When creating for a wide demographic, designing without bias is key.
Because online reservation is such a wide subject, it is inevitable to get criticism on the subject, like I myself did.
Reframing the design process to understand that your work is disposable enables more iteration, and therefore more success
Further iterations and testing prototypes, help refining the design with more effective solution.
Big challenges need small steps
Implementing big changes cannot happen overnight. Therefore, it is essential to develop strategically meaningful that guide progress in the intended direction.
If I had additional time, I would…
If this is a hypothetical project, it's very important to make sure that I am able to showcase that I have thought about how I am able to measure my impact
Under the time constraints I wasn't able to fully investigate all the possible trades-off for my users. I want to showcase that I make purposeful decisions that impact my solution.
I approached the product with more concrete ideas about the result, thus failing to correctly take into account some needs and challenges of the target group and so unfavourably defined the MVP.