Appetized

Aug 2022 - Mar 2023

Reducing Error rate by 40% in Appetized’s Menu Builder: Enhancing Category, Item, and Menu Creation

Standout among competitors by introducing distinctive value propositions

Role: As the sole product designer at Ada-verse Consulting Group, I led the end-to-end design for Appetized within a cross-functional team of 5, covering research, UX strategy, UI design, and implementation.

Sector: Foodtech, Digital Menu & Restaurant Management Solutions, SaaS, E-commerce, Web App, Desktop App

Impact: I reduced the menu builder’s error rate by 40% through a streamlined redesign of the item and category creation flow. I introduced Agile practices that improved team collaboration and cut demo prep time by 20%. I also designed a scalable, modular system architecture to support future expansion into food delivery and retail.

Vision: To expand beyond digital menus into food delivery and retail sectors, including clothing and other product-based businesses.

Animated prototype using After Effect exported in Lottie.

Problem

I researched competitors in a saturated digital menu market, defined a unique value proposition, designed the solution, and tested the prototype with users to validate it.

Saturated Market

Most restaurants seek a solution to retain customers beyond the initial opening burst.

Most restaurants use a digital menu alongside their own management and accounting systems.

The competitors mostly targeted small to medium-sized businesses.

Customers can't pay directly through the app and use it primarily as a note-taking tool.

Why haven't the competitors implemented the payment integration yet?

Although customers may submit an order on the web app, they often call the waiter to confirm their order. Additionally, most users prefer to pay after the meal.

Handling payments involves following strict security protocols, meeting standards, and navigating complex regulatory requirements.

Integrating with accounting systems adds complexity to the user experience and introduces technical challenges.

Solution

I proposed 7 targeted solutions to help the product stand out in a crowded market and address specific user needs.

✅ Sales & event features to retain costumers

To help restaurants retain customers, they should offer new attractions, such as a Christmas event featuring a special menu and a party.

✅ Micro interactions

Incorporated animation to enhance user experience.

Sales & event

Micro interactions

✅ Targeted food courts and large sized restaurants

Restaurants can create multiple shops and menus with customized settings and specifications. They can view dashboards individually or collectively, and also select the currency and language for their menus.

Dashboard supporting various shops

Supporting various menus

Menu settings, schedule and status

✅ Cost and price features to calculate revenue

Restaurants can track the revenue of each item on their dashboard by entering its price and cost.

✅ Preparation time feature to help restaurants improve efficiency

Restaurants can improve their efficiency by comparing estimated and actual preparation times.

Items with needed inputs

✅ Customized menu UI and QR-code matching restaurants’ brand

Customization significantly boosts user adoption of our product.

Custom icons for categories

Custom QR code

Custom style with preview

✅ Support different languages

Customization significantly boosts user adoption of our product.

Shops support different languages along with the system language

Challenges

During this project, I encountered 4 main challenges, which I will elaborate on below.

#1 Keeping consistency across platforms

Maintaining consistency across the web app, admin panel, and website while managing both LTR (mostly English) and RTL (mostly Farsi) languages was challenging.

RTL and LTR languages

The LTR user experience is more familiar, but using the same practices in RTL languages can negatively impact readability. Additionally, numbers in RTL languages are read from left to right, which adds another layer of complexity.

Although left-to-right layouts are more common, mirroring the pages for RTL languages was necessary to align with users’ natural reading habits and improve their overall experience.

To ensure a consistent experience and improve usability, I implemented the Ant Design System with its JavaScript library, customizing components to support RTL languages. Here are some UI elements form the design system:

Appetized UI kit in a glance

#2 Designing for Scalability & Maintainability

The product vision included future expansion into food delivery and retail, so I developed a scalable, adaptable information architecture to support growth from day one.

Digital menu information architecture

Menu builder information architecture

Additionally, I implemented a hybrid component naming method to improve scalability and maintainability.

Hybrid component naming for scalability

#3 Integrating with Existing Admin Panel Backend

Due to time constraints and pre-existing backend and frontend development, the core menu creation flow couldn’t be altered. I enhanced the process by implementing minor but impactful improvements to boost usability without disrupting the system. Here are some of them:

🟢 Enabled adding multiple categories and items to a menu simultaneously, replacing the previous one-by-one process.

🟢 Allowed editing or adding of categories and item details directly during menu editing, which was not possible before.

🟢 Added a dashboard with plan and billing management.

Previous dashboard

Current dashboard with export report feature

🟢 Improved color accessibility to ensure better usability for all users.

🟢 Introduced key features including menu scheduling, image support, QR codes, descriptions, preview mode, multi-language support, and the ability to disable or duplicate each category and item.

Previous menu builder

Current menu builder supports direct editing and adding of categories and items

#4 Working as a Sole Designer

I was the only designer on a team of three developers, a product manager, and a marketer. To maintain design quality, I incorporated some methods to overcome the lack of senior design support.

🟢 Held regular design critique sessions with the team.

Team members' feedback

🟢 Conducted benchmarking by analyzing weaknesses in digital menu competitors, such as cluttered interfaces, limited customization, and poor multi-language support.

Used common design common practices including clear navigation, brand customization, and accessible color schemes to address these gaps and enhance user experience.

Appetized Competitors

🟢 Engaged with UX design communities on Telegram, Discord, and Slack for feedback and support.

#5 Improving Collaboration & reducing time to demo by 20%

As a small but growing team, we needed new processes to save time, boost efficiency, and streamline communication to meet our goals.

Challenges

❓ Vague task definitions, unclear prioritization, and inaccurate time estimates.

❓ Gaps in information flow and verbal communication causing misunderstandings.

❓ Long demo cycles due to the tendency to deliver fully polished features before review.

Solution

Drawing on my experience with Agile framworks, I introduced Scrum practices to improve collaboration. Within one month, we reduced demo time by 20%. The approach included:

✅ Facilitating a team workshop to identify collaboration issues and brainstorm solutions.

✅ Prioritizing issues by impact and effort.

✅ Starting with small changes and iterating based on feedback.

✅ Holding regular feedback sessions to evolve our Agile process and ensure team involvement.

Actions Taken

✅ Adopted Trello to improve information flow.

✅ Used Jira for clear task definition and management.

✅ Established daily and weekly meetings to plan sprints, estimate tasks, and foster communication.

Design

From the initial to the final version, after testing with 5 restaurant owners at a food fair in Tehran, user error rates in the main flow (creating categories, items, and menus) decreased by 40%.

We prioritized core features for the MVP to enable a faster launch and iterative improvements.

Wireframes

Digital menu wireframes

Menu builder wireframe

Final design

Impacts

Key contributions that improved product usability, team efficiency, and long-term scalability.

Reduced Error Rate by 40% in the menu builder among 5 users during usability testing, by redesigning the item and category creation flow to be faster, clearer, and more flexible.

Improved Team Efficiency by introducing Agile practices, reducing demo preparation time by 20% and streamlining task communication.

Designed for Scalability by creating a modular system architecture and UI that supports future expansion into food delivery and retail.

learnings & Next steps

Although the product had functional workflows, there’s still room to enhance the overall experience of both the digital menu and admin panel. Key insights were also gained throughout the project to guide future improvements.

Iterating: Designing a cohesive digital menu, admin panel, and marketing site from scratch highlighted the importance of frequent feedback and documenting design decisions to ensure scalability and consistency.

Technical collaboration: Working closely with developers gave me a realistic understanding of design implementation and its technical constraints.

Agile mindset: Applying Agile methodology, based on my thesis research, improved team processes and work quality, reinforcing that involving the entire team in decisions drives meaningful progress.

Launch an initial free giveaway and promotions for restaurants to gather feedback and improve user experience.

Refine the user experience further through usability testing and users' feedback from restaurant staff and end-users.

Measure customer footfall before and after implementing the digital menu to evaluate sales and event feature effectiveness.

Other