Indian Restaurant Website Design and Build
Overview
Business - Aroma Spice
Role - UX Designer (freelance)
Problem
Aroma Spice in Hampstead, London needed a new website after their surge in online orders due to COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Aroma Spice was also under a rebranding process.
Aroma Spice is a 20-plus-year-old fine-dining Indian restaurant that is family-run with a long list of loyal customers.
Teammates
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Director of Operations for Aroma Spice
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Graphic Designer/Photographer.
Result
Aroma Spiced saved a significant amount of money by switching to a more cost-effective payment processing solution. They now pay a flat monthly fee of $29 instead of commissions on each order, resulting in an annual saving of £3,600.
The new website provides a modern and user-friendly experience for customers, replacing the outdated and poorly structured design of their previous site.
Aroma Spice logo and entrance to restaurant.
Design process for www.aromaspice.co.uk
Screenshots from the old website for reference.
Aroma Spice in Hampstead, London, UK.
The people problem we were trying to solve...
We wanted our customers to be provided with a great ordering service. With the addition of our own incentives on a new website.
How do we know this is a real problem?
Delivery partner costs are unsustainable. Commission fees from using third parties are hidden and hard to track. People understand the idea of 'support local'.
How will we know if we've solved this problem?
Our costs to run ordering services should decrease. Especially running our own website as the developers take high commission.
Covid-19 and hospitality
Focussing on the delivery market had become imperative for hospitality businesses in 2020 due to Covid-19 lockdowns. Aroma Spice wanted to shift orders away from third party applications (i.e Just Eat, Deliveroo, Uber Eats and a website developer). Such apps are famously known to take 35% of a total order from businesses that use their services. Aroma Spice was aiming for a more 'personal' service to their customer's doors. Before this project, the company was doing a rebrand.
People Problem statement
"I want to have a dine-in experience/service with reasonable rates especially during lockdowns. I want to help support the businesses in my community"
User Need
Aroma Spice's customers want to give a great experience /service similar to when using apps to order. They want to support local businesses and the community.
Business Need
Aroma Spice needs a way to shift customers from delivery apps to their website to cut losses made from paying commissions.
Chicken and Rice from Aroma Spice.
Discover phase
To initiate the project, we embarked on a comprehensive problem-solving phase, involving in-depth conversations with Aroma Spice's Director of Operations, Manager, and their customers.
We conducted informal interviews and distributed a customer survey to gather valuable insights. This collaborative approach ensured that the team gained a shared understanding of the underlying problems and their root causes, rather than relying on assumptions. The findings from this phase informed the creation of a Value Proposition Canvas and Iceberg Canvas, serving as design artefacts for further reflection.
The Value Proposition Canvas highlighted the value propositions for both businesses and customers, while the Iceberg Canvas explored the potential societal, economic, and environmental implications of the product. This holistic perspective enabled the team to view aromaspice.co.uk as a comprehensive entity, considering both the visible and underlying aspects.
Through this process, we discovered that customers often held reservations about 'ordering directly' and prioritised value for money.
The Iceberg Canvas process. Click on the images to learn about each step in creating the artefact.
Define phase
Following the discovery phase, we sat as a team to discuss 'The Golden Path' (key user journey) for our users and the projects 'Design Principles' moving forward. This helped us articulate our product and how we will work.
We focussed on how to lure new customers to the site. It was clear loyal customers will come regardless. We discovered users who order directly less often needed persuasion to come to the site and order. We learned that we had to update the Google Businesses listing to achieve this.
The Golden Path for aromaspice.co.uk and Design Principles we set.
Develop phase
To make our product come to life we looked at what makes a website denote high quality and great service from a restaurant. We were aiming to build one page with useful information (i.e homepage).
We were limited with time so we presented a list of features instead of sketching solutions. Touching onto the delivery phase, the Director of Operations then voted on which features they wanted.
They agreed on:
- taking high-quality images for the site and Google Business listing
- including a 'bio' about the business
- reviews section (including Google Reviews and Trip Advisor)
- location details
- contact details
They also agreed on having a gallery, reservation, and of course an ordering page. These pages were given to my partner to focus on using their Camera and 'Gloria Food'.
Examples of what helped us create a list of features.
Deliver phase
The website was built using Wix site builder as I have used it previously for other projects. This was great for all of us as we are not the best coders. I naturally was involved in developing other segments of the site but focussed mainly on the homepage with the aforementioned components.
To validate the product and its usability we released the site as a 'beta' and relied on customers feedback to make changes to it. This is because we were in lockdown and it was difficult to recruit users. But it was also a great way of iterating the product for free.
Creating the website on Wix.
Outcomes and future work
Usability
User feedback revealed a significant usability issue with the Gloria Food integration for mobile orders. The responsive features were not functioning as intended, leading to a suboptimal mobile ordering experience. As a result, we decided to redirect mobile orders to Gloria Food's website (opening a new tab) until a more seamless solution could be implemented.
Additionally, button colours were adjusted to white for better visibility and theme consistency. On mobile devices, buttons were repositioned above the fold to address user confusion regarding the ordering process.
Overall, the website has been a welcome refresh for Aroma Spice and its customers, providing a modern and user-friendly experience. The Gloria Food integration also enables the implementation of attractive promotions for customers.
Sales
From September - December 2020, the website generated over £8,000 in revenue for Aroma Spice before taxes and card fees. The elimination of per-order commission fees and the switch to a low-cost monthly subscription plan with Gloria Food have resulted in savings of over £700 (after accounting for monthly fees, domain fees, and Wix fees) compared to the previous website development costs. Additionally, Gloria Food's reservation system eliminates the reservation fees previously charged by the old developers.
These results demonstrate the project's success in addressing the financial goals outlined in the "How will we know if we've solved this problem?" section. The website's cost-effective operation and elimination of commissions have significantly improved Aroma Spice's profitability.
Next steps
To continue the success of the site, we pushed the website to the people of Hampstead using leaflets and Google Business Posts to encourage people to use the site as opposed to apps like Uber Eats etc.
The next steps for this site, if I were to continue working on it, would be to check the experience of ordering on the Gloria Food platform and viewing other pages. There may be usability problems hidden in them that slow down users journeys.
Screenshots of the site and marketing tools we now use.
