Case Study 1:
Restaurant Reservation App

Project overview

The product: 

Using Figma, we’re creating Quick Reserve app to help people book and reserve tables of restaurants nearby, so they can avoid making phone calls to reserve tables and skip lines of restaurants. 

Project duration:

June 2022 to August 2022

The problem:

Busy workers lack the time to wait in line for restaurants.

The goal:

Design an app that allows users to easily book tables of nearby restaurants.

My role:

UX designer designing an app for reserving tables from conception to delivery

Understanding the user

Target audience: 

Adults and students in their 20s, 30s, 40s who don’t have time to cook meals and don’t want to wait in lines for nearby restaurants. 

Key challenges or constraints:

Research study details:

After interviewing dozens of people and making empathy maps for the project, I better understand their needs, goals, and frustrations. 

The user group is consistent with the initial assumptions about the users, but research also showed that other issues such as not being able to read menus, visual impairments may also affect the users’ experience. 

Starting the design

Initial design concepts: 

Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. For the home screen, I prioritized a quick and easy table reserving, balanced with clear interface and visual appealing, to help users save time.

Stars were used to mark the elements of each sketch that would be used in the initial digital wireframes.

Digital wireframes:

Low-fidelity prototype:

Using the completed set of digital wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype. The primary user flow I connected was reserving tables, so the prototype could be used in a usability study.

View Quick Reserve low-fidelity prototype

User testing results:

Refining the design

Mockups

High-fidelity prototype:

The final high-fidelity prototype presented cleaner user flows for reserving table. It also met user needs for editing existing reservation as well as for a more visually appealing layout.

View Quick Reserve high-fidelity prototype

Accessibility considerations:

Going forward

Impact: 

The app makes users feel like reserving tables easier and faster. 

One quote from peer feedback:

“The app made it so easy to reserve tables! This app’s layout is great. Many pictures. Easy to navigate. I would definitely use this app as a table reservation app.”

What I learned:

While designing Quick Reserve app, I learned that accessibility is really important in designing the app, which would benefit all kinds of users. Usability studies were a great way to test the prototypes. 

Next steps: