Dynamic website builder that empowers small businesses to seamlessly add personalized online ordering to their offerings.
We wanted to focus on empowering local businesses and small mom-pop restaurants in rural area. Our objective was to enhance the existing POS system offered by the company and contribute to the vibrant culture of community development and upbringing prevalent in United States.
My goal was to create a user- friendly and adaptable online ordering experience for both businesses and customers, ensuring a seamless process.
For this case study, I'll focus on the order scheduling aspect of the platform.
How might we empower customers to conveniently select a pickup or delivery time before browsing the menu, ensuring that their choice influences menu items and prices?
We designed and implemented a highly dynamic component for supporting the order scheduling needs of both the customers and business owners.
Check out the solution and order tasty food at https://www.siamlewisburg.com/ (for Lewisburg, PA)
Desktop Solution
Mobile Solution
01
Restaurant Customers
The customers who would come to the restaurant to grab food. These were mostly college students with a small population of families and empty nesters.
02
Business Owners
Business owners were mostly people in the age group of 30-50. They were mostly focused on keeping their business running while also thinking about expanding their income sources.
Understanding the userbase
To get a baseline understanding of the public space, I conducted semi-structured interviews with 3 businesse owners and 8 customers.
100%
Business owners wanted the customers to schedule the order at a specific time so that they could plan their resources accordingly. Also the pricing of items changed depending upon the requested delivery time.
72%
Customers wanted the ability to order in advance for special occasions like parties. and meal planning.
01
Scheduling Times
All of the competitors offer choices between group of options
02
Optional order scheduling
Most of the competitors had optional order scheduling. Some of them had it right on the first page.
03
Complicated time pickers
The time pickers offered by most of the competitors were too clustered.
Conducting participatory design sessions
I engaged in ideation to explore potential solutions and user flows along with the stakeholders. To solidify ideas and visualize the interactions, we initiated the process by creating sketches.Since we were in the early stages of the product we did User testing on the paper prototypes itself.
Final Prototype Sketch
How to keep all the stakeholders happy
We were able to come up with a design that satisfied the needs of the business owners while also keeping the complexity to a minimum for the consumers.
01
Business Owners
The business owner's requirement of having the user select the pickup/delivery time was addressed by making a default selection which would be handled by code.
02
Customers
The end design was a very simple dropdown which didn’t clutter the screen unnecessarily. This worked from the user's perspective.
Throughout this process, I gained valuable insights on the importance of considering the requirements of all user groups and crafting a design that caters to their needs. Different user groups may have distinct roles and perform diverse actions. By avoiding assumptions and following a structured design process, we were able to create a solution that fulfilled the expectations of all stakeholders.
