Domoishi is a restaurant that blends Japanese cuisine with modern lifestyles. With a focus on traditional Japanese dietary culture and aesthetics, it encourages customers to personalize their dining experience, promoting a playful exploration of flavors and ingredients.
This app allows customers to explore the restaurant's menu and dining concept, place orders efficiently, tailor their preferences and tastes, and enjoy a fusion of traditional and modern Japanese dining experiences.
This app allows customers to explore the restaurant's menu and dining concept, place orders efficiently, tailor their preferences and tastes, and enjoy a fusion of traditional and modern Japanese dining experiences.
Client: Role:
Domoishi UI/UX Designer
Visual Designer
Domoishi UI/UX Designer
Visual Designer
Team: Duration:
1 UI/UX designer 8 Weeks
1 Product manager Aug, 2023
4 Developers
1 Stakeholder
1 UI/UX designer 8 Weeks
1 Product manager Aug, 2023
4 Developers
1 Stakeholder
Problems
Domoishi offers customization options for ingredients and flavors, yet its ordering process is somewhat intricate, leading to low efficiency in ordering. Although Japanese cuisine emphasizes fresh, seasonal ingredients, the restaurant falls short in effectively highlighting its signature dishes, resulting in ingredient wastage. Moreover, the traditional ordering system's lack of transparency in waiting times occasionally prompts customers to abandon their orders.
Hypothesis
An ordering app that can provide custom self-orders can simplify and speed up the ordering process, raise awareness of signature dishes, and build connections with customers.
Design Process
Research
Background Research
I thoroughly observed Domoishi's dining process, and discovered that the ordering system was overly complex, disorganized, and lacked consideration:
• Domoishi offers users the ability to customize ingredients and flavors, which can be overwhelming due to the amount of information presented.
• The way of ordering through the waitstaff and menu often left new customers, particularly those unfamiliar with Asian food, feeling uncertain about how to proceed.
User Interview
I conducted interviews with 5 Domoishi customers, 3 of whom were returning customers and 2 were new. Through these interviews, I gained valuable insights into my target audience's experiences with Domoishi and identified their pain points.
Research method: User interview
Interviewees: 5
Duration of each interview: 30 minutes
Characteristics of the interviewees: Domoishi's customers during peak hours
Questions: 8
Interviewees: 5
Duration of each interview: 30 minutes
Characteristics of the interviewees: Domoishi's customers during peak hours
Questions: 8
Competitive Analysis
My goal in researching the competition was to gather inspiration for features and design systems.
What I took away:
1. It's important to innovate in functionality to adapt to the restaurant's unique customer needs.
2. It is important to consider all the stages so users can have a better experience.
3. It is important to maintain good design system consistency.
1. It's important to innovate in functionality to adapt to the restaurant's unique customer needs.
2. It is important to consider all the stages so users can have a better experience.
3. It is important to maintain good design system consistency.
Synthesize
Persona
Based on the interviews, I created two different personas to uncover the issues faced by diners. These two user personas represent a new diner and a returning customer.
User Journey
The User Journey has made a visual representation of in-store behaviors and emotions that are going on with the current state without an app. The conclusion was that using a paper menu to order at Domoishi is frustrating, and waiting is also anxiety-inducing. Therefore, I designed the Domoishi app to solve these problems.
Insight
Problem Refame
Key Features
Ideate
Site Map
I created the site map based on the key features, dividing the screens into five main sections: home, menu, rewards, profile, and cart.
Wireframe
I developed a wireframe to map out the user flow and design. This wireframe helped me to outline the structure and arrangement of content and elements. This process also enabled me to identify design flaws and address them by considering the users' perspective.
Design System
Branding
I also created a visual identity which includes a logo, fonts, color and brand themes.
UI Elements
Based on the logo's graphic, I designed a set of UI elements.
On Boarding
During the sign-in process, the app not only records users' basic information but also, with their consent, keeps track of their allergies or dietary restrictions, as well as dietary preferences. After onboarding, users can directly access the home page to place orders.
Start Order
On the welcome page, users can start ordering or book a table without logging in. For dine-in customers, after scanning the QR code to input the table number and selecting the number of diners, they can begin browsing the app pages and menus.
Special Dishes
To better showcase special dishes, there is a link on the home page that allows users to directly access video demonstrations of the special dishes being prepared. Watching the chef perform ingredient handling and cooking is also a characteristic of Japanese kitchen culture.
Recent Orders
The app will help users keep track of recently ordered dishes, making it convenient for users to quickly select options they have already tried. From the menu collection page, users can access previous orders.
Recommendations
During the onboarding process, the app records the user's dietary preferences. Based on this information and previously ordered dishes, the app will recommend dishes that the user may like.
Allergies
The app records user's ingredient allergies. If a dish contains any allergens, there will be a notification in the menu.
Create a custom Dishes
On the menu page, there's a section for custom dishes. Users can click on this part to be guided step-by-step to create their own unique meal. Additionally, they can input notes for their special preferences.
Transparent Waiting Time
On the ordered dishes page, users can see the progress of each dish being prepared as well as the remaining wait time.
Takeaway
Reflection
In this project, I had a valuable experience developing an intuitive and seamless ordering experience based on extensive user research and feedback. By integrating features that allowed users to monitor the preparation progress and wait times for their orders, I realized the importance of keeping users informed throughout their journey. This transparency not only improved the overall user experience but also fostered a sense of reliability and trust in the app. This experience underscored the value of clear communication and real-time updates in building a positive and trustworthy user relationship.
Next Steps
For this project, I primarily focused on the mobile screens. Next, if I have more time, I plan to complete the restaurant's iPad ordering system. The iPad ordering system will streamline the in-restaurant dining experience, making it easier for servers to take orders and for customers to customize their meals directly from their tables.
Thank You