Introduction
OpenTable is a mobile app and online platform facilitating restaurant discovery, reservations, and management. Users can explore restaurants, view menus, read reviews, and make hassle-free reservations based on preferences.
The Challenge
The challenge revolves around trust issues within the OpenTable App. Existing users cannot currently easily connect with friends and access their recent restaurant reviews. Consequently, this limitation undermines users' trust and confidence in their bookings after reading reviews.
The Goal
Introduce new features within the OpenTable App that allow returning users to effortlessly connect with friends, view their latest restaurant reviews, and leverage this validation to confidently make table reservations, ultimately enhancing user trust and driving increased booking conversions for OpenTable.
Team
Leilani Hedstrom
Ruth Co
Timeline
8 weeks
Roles
UX Research
Wireframes
UI Design
Interaction Design
Usability Testing
Tools
Figjam
Figma
Notion
Maze
Slack
The Methodology
The use of design-thinking methods serves as a guiding post, following a non-linear process involving multiple iterations of empathy, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. This approach proves especially valuable in this case study as it aims to solve a unique problem within the existing context with only essential interventions.
Current State
We conducted a Usability Review of the current screens spanning from sign-in/sign-up to reviews. Using a color-coded system, we employed green sticky notes to emphasize positive findings and red stickies to highlight possible areas of improvement.
Our primary goal throughout the review was to understand the user's perspective better, enabling us to pinpoint potential areas for enhancing social connectivity and increasing confidence in reviews. Furthermore, we evaluated the overall app functionality, visual design, efficiency, consistency, and accessibility.
User & Business Frustrations
Primary Frustration
When users face [incomplete reviewer details], trust in reviews weakens, impacting [user reliance and platform credibility].
Secondary Frustration
When user [engagement with review features is low], valuable feedback and interactions are limited, hindering [community growth and diminishing the platform's overall value] for both users and businesses.
Competitor Benchmarking
Competitor Benchmarking offers a valuable opportunity to learn from competitors' strengths and analyze user reactions to their products. We utilized the OpenTable color-coded system to conduct a usability review of Resy, a direct competitor in the restaurant reservation mobile app industry.
Meanwhile, we chose to review Vrbo as an indirect competitor. Exploring indirect competitors can unearth innovative ideas that we might not have considered for our space. This approach broadens our perspective, allowing us to draw inspiration from unconventional sources and potentially discover untapped opportunities.
During the ideation phase of the project, we reviewed Yelp as an indirect competitor. We specifically were interested in observing the reviewer profile and how 'social proofing' (the psychological concept that people are influenced in their decision-making by others) was implemented to bring more confidence to users.
Define Problem Space
The core issue is around [trust] in OpenTable app reviews. We came up with 3 'How Might We' statements to help us define the problem space empathetically, aiding the creative ideation generation stage.
Ideate
The Ideation phase involved three distinct exercises: mind-mapping new and improved ideas, 'crazy 8' sketching of these ideas, and a prioritization exercise to select concepts for further development.
Mind-Mapping
Ensuring we visualize the connections between ideas before it's materialized. Segregating ideas into "improve" and "add" sections visually directs our focus and trains attention on both enhancing existing features and introducing new elements. This approach ensures a balanced consideration between new additions and improving existing functionalities, often requiring minimal effort.
What can we improve
What can we add
'Crazy 8' Sketching
We utilized the 'crazy 8' exercise to sketch our initial ideas, allowing us to outline feature structures with minimal risk and attachment. These concepts were generated under time constraints and with less effort, offering more flexibility compared to later phases, especially when crafting high-fidelity versions of these ideas.
User Flows
Due to unforeseen constraints and prior commitments, my teammate and I have opted to independently proceed with the remaining projects.
Existing User Flow
In my endeavor to visualize the user journey and pinpoint the exact areas for implementing our identified ideas, I created two distinct User Flow Diagrams: the Existing User Flow (baseline) and the New User Flow (improvements).
New User Flow
I organized expected enhancements into four groups: sign-up/sign-in, friend's feed, reviews, and user profile. I then used a blue dot to pin the exact user locations to serve as a reference point to indicate the intended redesign features.
Rapid Prototyping
I created low-fidelity wireframes to encapsulate the prioritized ideas across the previously identified four feature groups. This step aids us in conceptualizing and refining our design concepts before transitioning into the high-fidelity phase of prototyping.
Styles Guide
At this point, I am transitioning the work progress from FigJam to Figma. However, before proceeding, I developed a style guide to establish a solid foundation for design consistency, efficiency, scalability, maintenance, and brand alignment throughout the entire high-fidelity design process.
High Fidelity Screens
An initial round of prototypes revolved around three primary concepts: greetings and verification processes, browsing through restaurant evaluations and filtering by friends, social updates by friends, and personal profiles.
High Fidelity Prototype
Usability Testing
Maze was employed to evaluate interface usability, encompassing both enhancements and new features, in an unmoderated testing environment. Testers completed three distinct tasks, offering feedback after each. Our cohort comprised 27 testers, with 78% reporting infrequent use of reservation booking applications.
Test outcomes
The average task completion time stands at 29 seconds, with Task 2 being the quickest at 11 seconds, while Task 3 demands the most time at 46 seconds. Although the results didn't align with my initial expectations, the overall usability score did reach 64%.
I believe it's important to acknowledge that this represents my inaugural independent case study. The insights learned will serve as a robust foundation for driving substantial enhancements in future iterations.
Three key learnings
Reduce distractions by implementing 'read more' for long reviews on Reviews and Friends' feed pages to prioritize visuals on mobile screens
Reduce user friction in Task 3 by placing the Sorting button on the first review page, to streamline the process and improve user guidance.
Simplify Task 3 with fewer steps, screens, and clicks. It took longer (46s) and had lower usability due to confusion from competing elements.
Next steps
Here are the aspects I would modify if time weren't a limitation: Develop the post-verification phase, enabling users to import contact lists from various social media platforms.