Whats on the menu?
Patented, dynamic menu experience that unleashes the power of a restaurant’s greatest marketing tool: The Menu. Popmenu has continued to partner at eye level with restaurants to create easy-to-use restaurant technology solutions that attract and engage guests, drive more transactions, and build long-term guest loyalty.
To comply with my confidentiality agreement I have gained approval to post these designs on my portfolio as this was part of an interview take-home design challenge that secured a job offer.
THE PROBLEM
How can I re-design to reflect a nautical theme that has a modern look?
Popmenu’s client Wimpy’s Restaurant is not happy with his site. He does not want it as bright and vibrant and does not like how cartoony it is. They want a more modern look with the use of a darker color pallette and the nautical fisherman theme.
Problems observed from user behaviors
Popmenu’s client Wimpy’s Restaurant is not happy with his site. He does not want it as bright and vibrant and does not like how cartoony it is. They want a more modern look with the use of a darker color pallette and the nautical fisherman theme.
Product requirement
To redesign the app and give it a more modern and nautical theme.
MY ROLE
UX Designer
The redesign was a 5-hour design challenge where I was the sole designer. I created hi-fidelity mockups including several design iterations to submit to the lead web designer at Popmenu.
Timeline
5 Hours
Tools
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Sketch
Teams
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Hiring Manager
Team Collaboration
This was a take-home design challenge for a role I interviewed to launch my UX design career. I was super excited and looked forward to the job offer.
THE DIRECTION
What was the design process?
During this design challenge, my goal was to understand the problem consider the client’s needs and requests to select colors, fonts and stock photography for use on their new Popmenu site.
With consideration to time, I started with a brief research into nautical themes, color palettes and google fonts. Then I dived straight into sketching mockups with several iterations.
Quick Sketching Session
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Create a simple mockup for home page.
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Most known restaurant theme template.
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Large hero image under navigation top header.
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Brief text with description, photo gallery, and menu.
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Footer with location information and contact details.
STYLE GUIDE
How did I make the color selection?
Selecting a color palette was challenging but I knew I had to stick to a color on the darker side of the palette. Blue isn’t a common color in restaurants, because it does not evoke the feeling of hunger.
The beauty of the design process is that rules can be broken with exceptional designs. Navy Blue does elevate the idea of a sea theme in seafood restaurants.
One way blues have worked for similar restaurants, is in the seafood or nautically-themed restaurants who have been very successful in using the darker blue.
I balanced the blue with a use of red/orange color on the CTA button to represent the food industry to create a user appetite.
THE CHALLENGES
Deciding typography?
Open Sans, Lato and Roboto are the top 3 google fonts used on restaurant websites. These are all very popular fonts.
I decided to go with Lato for the body font, to give it a more modern appeal.
I chose a more nautical themed font for the restaurant header. The closest I found was Georgia.
According to the research, Georgia is a serif font that appears elegant and also legible in print, for printing menu's.
Georgia goes very well with Lato and is used mostly as a header with Lato as the body text.
KEY QUESTIONS
Completed
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Does the menu belong on the landing page? Why?
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Is the restaurant fine dining or casual?
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Is the market and restaurant in the same location or separate?
THE END
Final Design Submissions
One of Sleep Number’s leadership principles is having a mindset, users don’t care for the design, as long as it gets the job done. There was a bit of proudness to insist that product decisions are reversible and spending time doing is better than over analyzing or holding off on the sprint release. We’ll fix it in the later sprints.
