This website was designed for a small family owned restaurant that specializes in simple American classics that can be found at any backyard barbeque such as hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken wings. The site was designed to introduce the community to the business while highlighting the current menu offerings and communicating the business will also cater events. To meet the business objectives, the website was designed with 4 specific goals – include pictures of the food to entice the customer, provide detail pricing/menu options, have a page to gather prospective client information for catering and provide contact/location information. These goals were achieved by creating a single page for each objective and having each of these pages link to the other. The overall look and feel of the entire website was designed to use imagery and colors one would see while grilling food.
The “home” page of the web site was designed to make an immediate impression and leave no doubt what the site and business are about. The navigation bar is displayed prominently in the upper left-hand portion of the page as it is well understood that most people read top down and left to right, this placement will allow the user to quickly navigate to other pages if desired. The navigation bar includes a hover feature which turns the cursor grey when selecting another page. The logo is an image of a grill grates with flames rising from the bottom, the picture was darkened so the text on top of the image would be clearer for the end user. The color scheme used on the home page and the other pages is black, orange and grey. These colors were selected as they are the colors of a barbeque, grey for smoke, black for charcoal or the grill itself and orange for the flames. The grey color also helps to soften the background making it easier on the eyes and allowing for the orange or black verbiage to pop off the screen. Three images have been displayed on the home page, each representing one of the main offerings of the business. The verbiage was purposefully kept to a minimum to keep the end user focused on what is the important part of the business – which is their delicious food. The font “verdana” was utilized for the home page and for all other pages on the website, this elongated font was designed to be easy to read on small computer screens or devices.
The “menu” page continues the same theme and design of the home page and utilizes the same color scheme (grey, black, orange) and font “verdana”. Three tables have been included on this page which includes individual menu options, descriptions and the price for each item sold at the restaurant. Each table has a corresponding picture for the specific menu item. A .gif of numerous hamburgers cooking on the grill add an interesting aspect to the page and if you try hard enough you can almost smell them cooking. Red text was utilized to highlight additional items that can be added on to the main items such as french fries or onion rings.
The “catering/parties” page also uses the same theme, colors and fonts as the other pages. On this page a form was designed to gather client information related to catering. A background image of a grill with numerous items cooking is used to highlight the form and fits the theme of the site. The corners of the form have been rounded to soften the touch of the form. The form itself has been kept simple to just gather a minimal amount of information to get the conversation between the business and end user started. The submit button is prominent, centered in the middle of the page and like the form itself has rounded corners to soften the impact.
The “contact information” page employs the same theme, colors and fonts as the other pages. This page includes the email address, phone number and street address of the business. A local map of the area was provided so the end user can quickly visualize where the business is situated (Note: as this is a fictional business, I did not want to include a real time link to Google Maps, but this is something that can easily be added).
The “about” page describes the decisions made when designing this website along with the thought process that went along with the design. The colors, theme and fonts have been carried through the entire website and give the site a consistent professional feel.
There are numerous opportunities for improvement and growth with this website, I would recommend to the owners that they develop a social network presence. Once this is established, links to these sites (Facebook, Twitter etc.) can be added to the site. At some point, on-line ordering can be added to the page which would allow the end user to place their order from the site itself. Finally, as the business grows additional pages can be added to demonstrate how the company supports the community.
If there had been more time to implement this website, additional information could have been added on how they prepare their food (sustainable, locally sourced) and some of the other side items they sell (drinks, salads etc.). A mission statement should be added at some point which will briefly describe what the business believes in and what they are committed to delivering to their customers. This will help build trust and deliver a clear message to their clientele.