DineTown
Easily book table at your favourite restaurant and order food
Project :
DineTown
Role :
Solo student project
Duration :
12 Weeks
PROBLEM
1) Users were not able to book table of their own choice.
2) Users have to use different apps to book table and order food.
3) Users need filter options otherwise it take up a lot of time to find what they are looking for.
As a regular booking apps user, I've noticed that users were not able to book a table of their own choice and table were randomly reserved without any information. Also users have to use different apps to book table and order food. Users need filter and sort option which will save their time.
THE SOLUTION
I had to create a interface capable of exploring great restaurants as well as order your food and incorporate a way for users to do both booking and ordering using one app. DineTown gives users freedom of choosing their own table while booking .
Book a table of your own choice
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Users can reserve the table of their own choice after seeing the table settings information.
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Study showed that users are more happy to get to choose their own table rather than randomly assigning it to them.
No need for different apps
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Users gets frustrated when they have to use differents apps for reservations and food ordering.
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Using DineTown, users easily can do both reservation and order food
Filter options to save time
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Users gets frustrated when they don't have any filter option to narrow down their options
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Having filter option can save time of the users
Design Process
Meet the Users
25 years old | Software Engineer
User Story
Siddharth is a 25 year old software engineer who is willing to learn new skills to grow. He likes going to restaurant but sometimes while booking a table he has to open other apps to see the route to the hotel or order food online. He doesn’t like when there is no info about table setting so he can’t book the table of his own choice.
Goals
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To have a healthy and balanced life.
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Need a app from which he can reserve a table as well as order food
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Able to decide which table to book.
Pain Points
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There is not direct link in any restaurant app for google maps.
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Not able to decide which table to book without seeing any info about table settings .
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To use different apps for reservations and food delivery.
“I want to have a balanced life”
22 years old | Marketing Major
User Story
Sarah is a 22 year old student pursuing her BBA in marketing . She has busy schedule while attending classes, so she is not able to cook while studying so she use apps to order her food . But sometimes she get frustrated when she is no able to customize her food like removing the things she is allergic to and not able to filter her search.
Goals
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To learn skills that will attract new job opportunities
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Able to customize the order while ordering food .
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Tracking the food order and filter search options
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Able to see photos and description of food
Pain Points
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Not able to customize the order
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Not able to track my order
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Not able to see my last order so if I want to repeat my last order I have to add all things again which is time consuming.
“I want to learn and grow as much as I can”
Competitive Analysis + The Gap
According to studies, people want to book table of their own choice and get little frustrated by using different apps to book table or order food from their favourite restaurant. While keeping the above statistic in mind, I analysed the 4 most popular apps surrounding this goal/productivity space . I found that almost none of them had this aspect of booking of our own choice . This then became my opportunity for the solution.
Eazydiner
Zomato
Swiggy
Dineout
Link to full competitive analysis here
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Usability Study
After keeping in mind all the users needs, I had designed lo-fi prototypes and conducted usability usability study with 5 participants from different backgrounds. I’ve asked them our research questions to test my designs and see what are the users pain points and how can I improve them. Then I organised my data through affinity mapping .
Research questions :
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How long does it take for a user to find and book a table and order food in the app?
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What can we learn from the steps that users take to book a table and order food ?
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Are there any parts where users are getting stuck?
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Are there more features that users would like to see included in the app?
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Do users think the app is easy or difficult to use?
Link to Lo-Fi prototypes here
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Affinity Diagram
Based on the trends in my affinity diagram, I've noticed that there are some user's pain points and I come up with major insights to enhance the user experience.
Major Insights
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Based on the theme that: most of users finds that restaurant page only open on clicking it’s name and not elsewhere , an insight is: User should be easily able to open restaurant booking page.
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Based on the theme that : most of the user find it difficult to pick a date without a calendar , an insight is: User need calendar while picking date in table booking process.
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Based on the theme that : most of the users were frustrated because of absence of confirmation page, an insight is: User need a confirmation page before booking.
Improvements
Based on the feedback from my usability study, I continually iterated my designs over the span of 3 weeks - with 2 major improvements :
1
It's easier to pick a date using a calendar
2
Confirmation page before making final reservation
The Final Product
Conclusion + Lesson Learned
What I’d do differently next time.
A few things I’ve learned while building the whole project :
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1. Iterate as much as you can. In the beginning stages, I’ve explored so many different options to try finding the right solution for my users- I’ve made many iterations of my FIGMA file to make sure every aspect of the app was designed with intention. Not to mention- I have a better sense to obey WCAG standards next time.
2. Focus more on tradeoffs with each direction. I explored solutions using VR/AR, I hope to become stronger in communicating these tradeoffs with the user in mind so I can better communicate my design decisions to myself, and future recruiters
3. Be insight- not process-driven. Despite weeks of research + development, my first version of this case study was full of unnecessary text at this stage instead of tying everything into the bigger question- “so how does this fit into the bigger picture”? Hence, I cut down the copy by more than 60% and focused on the major points in my project. Hence, going forward I believe focusing more on the insights will improve my storytelling abilities to others.
4. You didn’t fail- you just found 100 ways that didn’t work. From noticing mistakes in my UI to uncovering more foundational UX problems in my app, I’m thankful to have constantly asked for feedback from my peers and my mentor. In the end, I pushed to have the app as best I could, and did not let my own thinking stop me from questioning if my own decisions were truly best for the user.