.svg)
UX DESIGN / UX RESEARCH / BRANDING / INTERACTION DESIGN
Marfa Burrito: eCommerce
A proposed redesign and user ordering flow of a beloved burrito hot spot, Marfa Burrito, situated in the middle of the Texas Desert, serving up house made tortillas.
UX/UI Designer, branding, Interaction Designer
4 Week Sprint, solo project
-1583707474%201.png)
PROJECT OVERVIEW
The Problem
Due to complications and lack of business with the 2020 pandemic, Marfa Burrito needs an improved website experience so that it’s customers can browse and order from their wide array of offerings.
Some risk factors include their location, competition and maintaining their fresh quality of food.
With the owner, Ramona Tejada, being a local burrito legend, I want to ensure we are building the correct and most useful site experience for customers that retains the trust of the business, and helps the business stay thriving in challenging times.
The Challenges
The Process
Kickoff
Starting off, I asked myself a few questions. Who is our primary user? What kind of goals do they have? Why would someone want order from Marfa Burrito? How large of a scope? Through interviewing participants to establish archetypes later on, and needing to do local and national research, it became evident that the goals they wanted to accomplish all fell within the same categories; having options when ordering as well as having a clear and concise UI that allows legibility. Both of these will align with the laid out business goals.
EMPATHIZE
Meet Ramona,
the owner
She makes “the best burrito in Texas” and she serves it straight from her kitchen. Known as “the Burrito Queen of Texas”, she attracts all types of people to her quant burrito restaurant she runs with two other women in Marfa, Texas, pop. 1,750.
Research Questions
Interviews were conducted across five different participants with questions related to ordering habits, pain points of ordering, best/worst experiences of ordering, and tailoring menu items. Through interviews, I gained a better understanding of the user and their needs.
View Interviews
Competitive Analysis
In order to better understand the landscape in Marfa when it comes to food ordering, I had to venture out to find out who else in the area had similar offerings.
In the immediate area, the most direct competitors with similar offerings are Do Your Thing Coffee, Food Shark, and Buns’ N Roses. Indirect competitors are Instacart, Uber Eats and The Get Go Grocery. I looked into availability, hours, ordering options, local loyalty, customization, and delivery.
Meet the Users
"THE LOCAL"
Age: 56
Occupation: Rancher
A native to Marfa going back four generations of ranchers. Randy understands hard work and southern food. He usually orders ahead of time and wants to pick it up. He wants options, simplicity, easy ways to add suggested items, feedback that his order has gone through, and honest cook and wait times.
"THE TRAVELER"
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Mae is always looking for the next big thing. She has thousands of followers on social media that look to her for cool things to do and great places to eat. She needs food ordering options, "trendy" vibes, and merch options. She has an eye for outdated interfaces and wants to make sure the place is worth her while.
DEFINE + IDEATE
Business and User Goals
After coming up with different solutions for the main problems identified, I started to lay out the strategy in terms of how these solutions would be implemented. First, I started by clearly defining the project goals to understand what we’re trying to achieve through implementing these solutions.
User Flow
Taking the primary and secondary personas into consideration and how they would use the Marfa Burrito website to order, two flows were constructed to better understand their uses. These would be usability tested once low-fidelity wireframes were designed, item selection as well as the checkout process.
Site Architecture
Site architecture was crucial due to their website needing a defined area for looking into Marfa Burrito as a business as well as having ordering options directly from them. The “order online” section needing to feel like a secure part of the experience, separate from the menu, about, and support sections.
Initial Sketches
Initial sketches were drawn to understand the typical user flow from our user task flow and what they wanted as options. A few different iterations of home page layout to the order/check out screen were drawn later to be tested.
PROTOTYPE + TEST
Wireflows
The foundation began to take shape from the sketches, wanting to incorporate all needs from the user, while maintaining a simplified flow of secure ordering with options and recommendations. These screens take you from the item selection process all the way through to checking out securely.
Usability Tests
From usability testing, I was hoping to gain insight in users' gut reactions to placement and ordering options.
A lot of confusion occured around the screens attempting to differentiate between viewing the restaurant menu and actually ordering online
Follow up questions were asked after completing the task, giving the user time to debrief on what they’re experience was. This led to changes from the low-fid prototype to the final high-fid mockup that would be tested on more users.
Accessibility
Being that the population is largely hispanic and Marfa Burrito is wanted to attract all types of people – being the close relationship Marfa has to their sister city of Ojinaga as well as Ramona being hispanic herself – accessibility was taken into consideration during the UI design process. Color contrast and readability were also ensured to be at the correct levels.
High Fidelity Prototype
Revisions After Initial Testing
After the first rounds of user testing, a few issues arose with the user flow. Product recommendations were added, as well as other customization options. A separate splash screen differentiating "ordering" and the restaurant site was removed and replaced with two buttons on the navigation as to not distract from the ordering page.
Final Site
Style Guide
Utilizing a bright orange, off white, and cool dark blueish black, the feelings of West Texas come to life, paying homage to the land Marfa Burrito is on. The bold typography makes for good legibility while the button contrast bring a new feel to the UI. The logo is geometric and simple, giving a modern touch.
Conclusion and Takeaways
Being a large burrito connoisseur myself, ease of ordering and available options are very important. Through user interviews, it was also noted that people loved supporting small businesses and using an internal ordering tool instead of a 3rd party online service. This was a very eye opening take on what users need when it comes to supporting these local businesses, specifically in such a special location such as Marfa, Texas. Although I was not able to fully flesh out other features and designs I wanted to within Marfa Burrito due to time constraints, it's not to say I won't try to incorporate them in future projects down the line.
Some of my next steps would be to:
and Interaction Designer