Vanessa's
Vanessa’s Dumpling House is a renowned and affordable Chinese dumpling store that originated in Chinatown, NY. It has since evolved to become a chain brand in the New York metropolitan area.
My role in this project is a UI and UX Web designer. I emphasized functionality and valued about client's and his employees’ feedback.
I simplified their menu and created and designed different location and catering sub-pages to solve their central kitchen always received random customer phone call problems doubled its optimized catering service doubled their profits and made the entire web application more user-friendly on both sides for their employee and customers. In the design process, I adhered to Vanessa’s old brand's primary color, orange, but incorporated its signature colorful dumplings. I utilized geometric shapes to make the website vibrant and dynamic and assisted my client in transitioning from the traditional Chinese style to the energetic young New York Style.
Project Overviw
12 Months
10+ Meetings
30 Pages
My Roles
Designed: wireframes
Defined: Sitemap and Userflow.
Interviewed: Clients and their employees
I contributed to and designed most pages such as the home, merchandise, catering, location, about us, and opportunities pages. It was a rewarding experience, and I am proud to have contributed to the creation of a visually appealing and user-friendly website for Vanessa's Dumpling House.
Problem
Cultural Integration
Vanessa’s Dumpling House started in 1999 when Vanessa Weng opened a small storefront on Eldridge Street in Chinatown where she sold her first batch of dumplings. After several years of development, Vanessa's became a well-known New York iconic chain restaurant and owns multiple locations in the New York and New Jersey metro area.
Therefore, the brand founder hopes to retain traditional Chinese elements, but the partners' opinion is that they hope to upgrade the brand's image and transform it. Their benchmark brands are American fast food brands similar to McDonald's and Wendy's. So they hope to transform their dumpling house into a Chinese fast food brand favored by vibrant young people.
Complex store menus & Various Locations
Vanessa Dumplings has more over eight locations in New York, but their different locations offer some special menus. Their old website did not provide a store menu preview feature. For example, upperwest and east side location serves wine and beer. But, Chinatown location do not.
Unfriendly to delivery & kitchen staff
Their different locations have their own delivery staff, and they have their own manufacturing facility and central kitchen in Long Island City. They also provide catering services, and they hope to promote their catering services, but the prices and services of pickup and food delivery are different. Typically, their central kitchen staff receives random calls from their customers requesting food orders and delivery. But the central kitchen does not provide this service.
Solution
I conducted on-site visits to their stores and obtained first-hand data on their target customer groups, and conducted a second redesign based on my observations.
The restaurant's combination of affordable prices, quick service, and satisfying meals aligns well with the needs and preferences of students.
Students 37.5%
Tourists 12.5%
Teenages12.5%
Corporate Clients 12.5%
Local Residents
25%
Iteration
First Draft
Final
Simplified Menus
During the meeting with clients, I suggested keeping the traditional offline menu while merging most of the similar items on the digital online menu. For example, they offer wines and Teriyaki in the Upper Eastside and Upper Westside, but this service is not available at other locations. Therefore, I converted all the offline menus into online digital Excel, analyzed them, and merged them accordingly.
One Button to call
In the mobile end, I designed two convenient buttons to guide customers to different pages:
one for catering and the other for the menu.
This not only provides ease of navigation but also addresses the issue of the customer central kitchen receiving random calls from stores in different locations to request delivery.
Additionally, a call button is included on the hero banner, enabling users to directly call the number of their corresponding store
Other Pages
