Bandito Taqueria 🌮
How do you design a website that balances Bandito Taqueria’s business goals and user needs? During this project, I was in charge of building an online presence for Bandito Taqueria.
Project Overview
Come up with a design that met Bandito’s business goals and user needs.
Role: Product Designer
Duration: 1 month
Company: Bandito Taqueria
Approach
I tackled the project in 3 phases.
Research & Discovery: Competitor Analysis, Stakeholder Interviews
Ideation: Brainstorming, Information Architecture, Site Map, Persona Development, Sketching
Design: User Flows, Wireframing, Prototyping, Collaborative Iteration
Research & Discovery
The research process for this project entailed competitor analysis and stakeholder interviews. As the sole designer for this project, I developed a research approach that combined new and unknown approaches to practice and learn new skills. I began by reaching out to Bandito Taqueria stakeholders, Jesus and Jorge.
Stakeholder Interviews
I met with the stakeholders of Bandito Taqueria to connect with them personally on their website goals and ultimately, get some ideas going. Through conversation, I found that they were very proud of the work they put into opening a brick-and-mortar. They also cherished their community and wanted to educate current and existing guests about how they maintain the integrity of their ingredients. Lastly, they wanted to work towards a site that allowed for online orders once they found a 3rd party partner. Having gathered this information, I set the following goals for the first iteration of their website:
Goals for Banditos’ website:
Have an online presence that stands as a foundation for future features
Educate new/existing guests about the integrity of their food
Showcase their story online
Competitive Analysis
“Conducting a UX competitor analysis can be a powerful tool to improve user experience and gain an edge over your competitors. By carefully analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of competing websites, you can ensure that your website stands out and provides customers with the best possible experience.”
-Dovetail.com
The competitor analysis gets us up to speed in our business space by looking at what others are doing. With the help of Jesus and Jorge, the stakeholders of Bandito Taqueria, we looked online for inspiration. Here’s what we found from our competitors:
Chipotle
Chipotle’s emphasis on “being "real” with their ingredients really resonated with the owners as it was insightful to visitors on the site. It also allowed for the site to showcase and preserve the integrity of the ingredients being used.
n/naka
n/naka, a Michelin-star restaurant, was an insightful site as well as the landing page featured a crisp professional photo of the dishes being served at the restaurant. A wow factor that Bandito really enjoyed as it captured the essence of the restaurant’s personality by showcasing the beautifully designed dishes.
La ChaChaCha
When looking at La ChaChaCha’s site, the Bandito owners liked how the site had a mission to guide users into booking a reservation upon landing on the site with a warm message in Spanish that resonated with the restaurant’s voice.
Discovery
After interviewing the owners of Bandito and doing some competitive analysis with them. I gathered the following:
Problem Statement
Bandito Taqueria needs an online presence that allows new and existing guests to visit and learn more about the company.
Hypothesis
By building a scalable website that informs visitors, new and existing guests will build brand awareness and also allow for future opportunities such as online ordering.
Ideation
After the discovery phase, I gathered all the findings and leveraged them to define goals and approaches for the design. The brainstorming phase is done best collaboratively, however being the sole designer on this project, I decided to work closely with the stakeholders and brainstorm with them.
Here are some key activities:
Brainstorm the pages needed for the initial iteration of the website
Understand who the target users are
Understand what the target users want to do
After several brief meetings with Bandito Taqueria, we compiled a list of pages the company wanted to showcase. As shown below, the foundation of the site was based on five pages: A Home page, a “Find Us'“ page, a Menu page, an “About Us” page, and lastly a page that showcased the food preparation and values at Bandito.
With some general informational architecture ideated for the entire site, I envisioned the flow of the homepage as it would create the flow for the rest of the site. Having sat down with the owners of Bandito, I aimed for the homepage to tell a story and have interaction points such as: viewing the menu, interacting with a map to view directions, and having the ability to follow Bandito Taqueria’s Instagram.
Sketching Wireframes
Knowing the pages the site needed, I went to the drawing board and began ideating some loose wireframes.
Utilizing Branding
Bandito Taqueria underwent some rebranding by the talented Abby Shiell. After reviewing the new brand kit, I gathered some ideas and input from Bandito to get a feel for the website’s personality. Below are some examples of the branding.
Prototyping
I opted for utilizing Squarespace as the site host for Bandito Taqueria as it allowed for easy daily management and collaboration. After reviewing some of the sketches with the owners of Bandito and receiving their feedback. I started putting the pieces together via Squarespace.
Collaborative Iteration
As this project is still a work in progress, I’ve since met with the Bandito team to review content and site functions. Overall, there is good feedback from the team but there are a few things to consider moving forward:
ADA-Compliance: Something we researched as we want to ensure all users can visit and interact with the site, the UserWay widget being a possible solution
Online Ordering: What will the flow look like?
Reflection
This was my first client-based project and I learned a great deal. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the team over at Bandito Taqueria because they were inspiring and admirable.
Here are some key insights I learned:
Don’t be afraid to take the initiative on design decisions
Pushing my comfort zone by working with stakeholders
The difference between a Product Designer and a Website Designer
Advocate for Design
Information Architecture
Persona Development
Understanding your users is key to meeting their needs. A persona, helps us understand the needs and goals of people we are designing for and, therefore, better empathize with their needs. Personas are not a single person but rather a representative of the entire user group.
Goal: Put ourselves in our user’s shoes and keep their needs at the forefront of our design.
With our earlier research findings, I was able to create the following persona, Sara:
Site Map
Having brainstormed the information architecture for the website, I was able to create the following site map to easily visualize the site structure and make smart decisions about layout and page hierarchy.
Design
The research process for this project entailed competitor analysis and stakeholder interviews. As the sole designer for this project, I developed a research approach that combined new and unknown approaches to practice and learn new skills. I began by reaching out to Bandito Taqueria stakeholders, Jesus and Jorge.