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Kanpai BBQ & Shabu Website Redesign
Kanpai’s brand new website brings modern Japanese dining online with a clean design and intuitive navigation that reflects the restaurant’s warm, authentic atmosphere.
Overview
Problem
The original Kanpai website created a frustrating user experience due to poor mobile responsiveness, limited navigation, and a menu that was only accessible through a PDF. Users often had to zoom in and out to find information, while broken links and a lack of visual content made it difficult to explore the restaurant's offerings. These usability issues prevented the website from effectively showcasing Kanpai's brand, atmosphere, and dining experience.
Mission
To create a modern and engaging digital experience that showcases Kanpai's unique dining atmosphere while making menu exploration, restaurant information, and customer engagement more accessible across all devices.
Goals
After meeting with stakeholders and evaluating the existing website, we established five primary goals:
- Create a visually appealing website that boosts Kanpai's professionalism
- Engage new and existing customers with stunning images of Kanpai's food
- Improve the website's ease of use/navigation
- Boost Kanpai's credibility and online presence by encouraging viewers to engage with Kanpai's reviews on Google and Yelp
- Have a website that is up-to-date and competitive with other BBQ websites by aligning with Kanpai's social media presence.
Ideation Phase
Personas
In order to start our design process, we first had to identify who we were designing for. We started by surveying and interviewing the manager of Kanpai, focusing our questions on what type of people go into the restaurant, what time they come, for what occasions, and how they see Kanpai, not only as a restaurant, but as a brand. We also placed QR codes inside the restaurant to hear from customers and interviewed our friends and family. After analyzing the data, we landed on two personas to center our design process around.
Brand Identity
For the rebranding, we really wanted to emphasize the bold red color used in their logo and really allow it to pop out against a dark background. In addition to this red color, we also wanted to add a more muted color for elements that still held importance, but didn't require all of the attention. The font we decided to go with was a clean, sans-serif font called Futura with varying typefaces for titles, headings, and paragraph text. These elements together created a clean and bold visual atmosphere that allowed images and important text to shine through the website.
Key Design Challenges
1) Homepage
The original homepage relied on a single long scrolling page that lacked organization and visual hierarchy. Users struggled to find important information, and the website failed to communicate Kanpai's unique dining experience.
We redesigned the experience around a mobile-first information architecture consisting of three primary sections:
- Home
- Menu
- About
To immediately capture user attention, we introduced large food imagery, stronger branding elements, and clearer calls-to-action. We also incorporated restaurant reviews, FAQs, and social media integration to build credibility and increase engagement.
2) Menu
The menu was previously presented as a PDF that required constant zooming and scrolling. It also lacked imagery and clear separation between BBQ and Shabu offerings. Our client kept stressing that the menu and pricing are what customers look for most, which made this our most important page.
We embedded the menu directly into the website and organized content into dedicated BBQ and Shabu sections. Food photography helps users picture each item. This created a more intuitive browsing experience and reduced friction for first-time visitors.
After addressing the key design challenges on both the Home and Menu pages, we applied the same visual language, branding, and navigation patterns to the About page to create a cohesive experience across the website. With the core pages complete, we finalized our first prototype and prepared for user testing.
Testing Phase
User Tasks
- You and your friend are thinking about having dinner at Kanpai, but you're not sure when they're open. Check their hours of operation.
- You've never been to a Japanese BBQ or Shabu restaurant before and want to know how it works. Can you find information on how dining at Kanpai works?
- Since you're considering going. Take a look at the menu and decide what you want to order.
- Spend the next minute thinking out loud as you explore the site. What stands out to you?
- You want to get a sense of Kanpai's vibe before making plans. Find photos or videos that show you what the place is like.
Follow-up Questions
- What was your overall experience using the Kanpai website?
- If you could improve one thing about the website, what would it be and why?
Key Insights from User Testing
What worked well
- The main photo, color scheme, and layout are visually appealing.
- The menu is well-structured and simple to browse.
- Social media integration and gallery photos showcase the dining experience effectively.
Areas for improvement
- Items lack descriptions, making it hard for users to know what they're ordering.
- The dining process is unclear and should be easier to find.
- Dropdowns on the menu page don't always work smoothly.
Updates
- Add menu descriptions for meats, vegetables, broths etc.
- Include ordering process details on the home page or menu page.
- Fix dropdown functionality for seamless experience.
We updated the dropdown after testing, while the dish descriptions depended on content from our client. He also reviewed the prototype, liking the mobile design and the simplified menu preview, but warned against using too many images. We used photos more carefully and tightened the menu layout. Our professor suggested shifting the About page from the restaurant's history to its present, but our client felt the history is a key part of Kanpai's brand. We kept it and made sure the dining info stayed easy to find.
Reflection
Being able to redesign Kanpai's website was a great opportunity for me, not only to gain more experience using different tools for prototyping, iterating, and designing, but also to work with a business and solve a real-world problem. It was great meeting with our client regularly to communicate updates and discuss design decisions before implementing our ideas into real designs.
The tight weekly deadlines and the tangibility of a real product raised the stakes beyond the classroom and made the completion of the final product more rewarding. It feels good to know that a product my groupmates and I designed is published for people to see and use right now.
I would like to thank Professor Kirsh and his teaching team, manager of Kanpai BBQ and Shabu Ronnie, and my groupmates Ellie, Jasmine, and Tanvi for helping to create a great final product.
Thank you for your time!
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out and contact me.
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