Objective
In this project, I served as a contractor for a company specializing in comprehensive digital solutions for restaurant owners. The primary focus was on developing their order experience builder tool, aimed at providing restaurant owners with an efficient platform for creating, designing, and maintaining their online ordering systems.
Challenges
During the initial stakeholder interview, I quickly realized that designing a graphical website builder comes with a unique set of challenges. The primary obstacle was navigating the myriad of technical possibilities inherent in such a tool. The goal was twofold: firstly, to ensure the tool was intuitive and meaningful for our restaurant owner clients, making their experience as seamless as possible. Secondly, it was crucial to align this new product with the company's existing suite of digital solutions. This meant innovating within certain boundaries to maintain a coherent product ecosystem without overwhelming the tool with excessive technical complexities.
Creative Process
1. Research: My extensive research into the industry, target audience, and competitors informed crucial design decisions. While existing website builders like Webflow and Shopify provided insights, the unique requirements of restaurant owners necessitated a tailored approach.
2. Imagining, conceptualizing, sketching: Based on research and having in mind most common use cases I imagined a tool that wasn't technically advanced in terms of its ability to design from websites scratch (it didn't have features as moving elements and containers through screen, drag&drop) but rather in it's intuitiveness to easily edit pre-made templates by adding your own content, changing colours, fonts while being able to see real-time preview.
This idea also supported the future development of the tool in terms of providing different pre-made (pre-designed) components, website sections, pages and entire templates.
3. Wireframing/Prototyping/Redefining: Collaborating with the development/management teams, I navigated through wireframing, prototyping, and refining stages. Features were added or removed during this iterative process, resulting in a clickable prototype with 120+ different screens.
Results
The culmination of this project was the creation of high-fidelity wireframes for a web application, tailored specifically for restaurant owners. This application offers a range of functionalities, enabling users to create a new website configuration, select from various pre-made design templates, and comprehensively edit content. Users can add, modify, or delete pages, sections, elements, and even incorporate custom code and metadata content.
Conclusion
Reflecting on this project, I take satisfaction in the usability and problem-solving aspects we achieved, particularly in addressing the user stories effectively. However, there's a lingering dissatisfaction stemming from not being able to monitor and manage the product's progression post-development. As a remote contractor, my role was limited to the intial design phase, which left me without the opportunity to see firsthand how the product evolved or how it fared with users in real-world scenarios. This experience has prompted me to contemplate the impact and limitations of a contractor's role in the broader decision-making process of external companies.
