Concept project - Resy
Timeline
3-week sprint, December 2022
Platform
Mobile App prototype (Figma)
Role
UX/UI Designer & Researcher, Content Strategy
Overview
Resy is a restaurant-reservation platform founded in 2014 that focuses on providing fine dining experiences, encouraging new restaurant discovery, and promoting culinary events. As of 2019, Resy handles 2.6 million diners per week.
Challenge
Many restaurants took a hit during the pandemic and are struggling to bounce back and increase their dining numbers. Resy wants to adapt to the new reality of dining experiences and encourage users to try new restaurants and dine out more frequently by offering a subscription service.
Approach
Usability testing, C+C Analysis, Site Analytics, Content Inventory, Business Model Analysis, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Journey Mapping, Service Blueprint, User Flows, Personas, Storyboards, Wireframing, and Prototyping.
Results
The Resy app redesign and feature implementation increased the overall usability and satisfaction with the app. Our Resy subscription service offers subscribers pre-booking suggestions based on their dining preferences and a rewards system that encourages diners to engage with Resy to receive discounts and special offers on a points-based system.
The Process
We tackled this project using the double diamond approach by first starting with discovery where we used various research methods to understand the current mobile app and its users. We then moved on to defining the problems Resy is facing and whom we are designing for. We then started designing by sketching and wireframing solutions and creating a mid-fidelity prototype. Finally, we moved on to delivery by testing our solutions and creating a high-fidelity prototype.
Research
Competitive and Comparative Analysis
We started our research by completing a competitive and comparative analysis to understand what users might expect from a restaurant reservation service. We compared Resy's features to three of its direct competitors, OpenTable, Yelp, and Tock.
We were surprised to find that none of Resy's competitors were offering a subscription service, so this could be a good way to stand out from their competitors. We also noticed that Resy lacked important restaurant details including menus, reviews, and information on accessibility for their restaurants.
User Interviews
To better understand people's dining and reservation habits our team conducted 8 scripted user interviews. We then used those interviews to conduct affinity mapping, by creating sticky notes for each important statement a user made, and then grouping their statements by topic to find trends.
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Findings:
Some important insights were
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Fine dining is expensive and is usually saved for special occasions
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Users dine out when they don't want to cook, or when they want to socialize with friends
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Users would enjoy special access to restaurants, discounts, and perks from a reservation subscription service.
Usability Testing
Next, we conducted usability testing of the current Resy experience to evaluate the booking process and find areas we could improve. We asked 8 participants to complete two tasks including:
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Find an available reservation for 2 people tonight at a restaurant near you between 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
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Find an upcoming special event or experience happening in San Francisco
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After testing, we also asked participants to complete a usability survey which measures how likely they would be to use this app, and how easy it was to use. We then took these metrics and created an average System Usability Score or SUS Score.
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Findings:
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The average SUS score was 59.6, which is ranked as poor usability
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4 out of 8 participants had difficulty searching for restaurants based on their location and found it difficult to navigate the filter and search options
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A common issue was that restaurant information was lacking, and difficult to find. There weren't many pictures, and users were unable to see a menu or reviews.
User 1
“It's not straight to the point."
User 2
"I probably wouldn't continue my booking experience."
User 3
“I couldn't figure out the icons. The navigation was confusing.”
Persona Building
After consolidating all of our research we developed a persona for a typical Resy user, so that we could better understand who we were designing for.
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Josie:
Josie is a regular Resy user, and books reservations at least once a week through Resy.​
The Problem
Josie is looking to make reservations at popular restaurants near her and needs a way to easily discover options based on her preferences so that she can plan an enjoyable experience without frustration.
Design
With our problem statement in mind, our team held a collaborative design studio session where we each sketched out possible solutions that addressed the needs of our persona and implemented a subscription feature. Together we decided on a final solution and polished up our sketches, then moved into wireframing.
Wireframing
After sketching our designs and deciding on how to implement our new features we began wireframing. Based on insights from our competitive analysis as well as our usability testing we decided on how to reformat Resy's homepage in a way that prioritized the categorization of results as well as images. We included a central navigation bar, as well as a button for selecting the date, time, and number of guests. We also included new information sections in the full restaurant details page to suit our users' desire for more restaurant information. We then took these wireframes and created a mid-fidelity prototype.
Homepage
Restaurant Details
Subscription Page
Prototype Usability Testing
We began usability testing on our mid-fidelity prototype to validate our design decisions. We tested 8 users and gave them each 4 tasks to complete on our prototype.
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Task 1: Book a reservation for 2 people tonight at a restaurant near you between 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Task 2: Browse nearby events
Task 3: Show me how you would become a subscriber
Task 4: Add a restaurant to your wishlist and then navigate to that folder.
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Our goal for this test is that our users would be able to book a reservation within 5 minutes with fewer than 2 errors.
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Results:
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100% of participants successfully completed the task within 5 minutes and with fewer than 2 errors
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75% of of participants didn't use the filter option to book a reservation
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The average SUS score for this round of testing was 89.7 a marked increased from the original score of 59.6.
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Final Prototype
We took the results from our usability testing and slightly tweaked the filter option for entering the date and party size by making it larger and with a darker outline to stand out more on the page because in testing users were not utilizing this feature.
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We also added a color scheme that matched the desktop version of Resy, as well as met AAA accessiblity compliance for Contrast and size.
Next Steps
After completing our high-fidelity prototype for our Resy redesign our next steps would include doing more usability testing on our prototype. We would also like to expand on the point-earning system by creating goals for users to reach and what perk or discount they would receive by reaching them. Another important next step would be to integrate the subscription flow into the regular flow of booking a reservation by including an advertisement for the service during browsing.
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