Sunday Night Dinner Craft Services
Sunday night Dinner Craft Services website:
https://oscarpan.github.io/snd/
For this project, the goal was to completely redesign a company’s website of course with the permission of the company. My group and I chose one of our group’s parent’s company — Sunday Night Dinner Craft Services.
- Development Plan
- Client Proposal/Client Survey
- User Interviews/User Surveys/Interview Data
- Creative Brief
- Mood Board/Competitive Analysis
- Wire-framing/Site Architecture and Functionality
1. Development Plan
Before the project fully began, our group and I needed to make a development plan. A development plan is a plan used to record and assign different tasks needed to complete a certain assignment or part of an assignment. Because there were four of us in the group, it was easy assigning tasks. The development plan would be updated throughout the quarter, adding more and more tasks until we felt comfortable that we had done it all.
The class is in a quarter system, meaning that we have ten weeks for one course. We made the development plan based on weeks with each week having new tasks that should be completed by different people.

The professor and teaching assistants gave weekly assignments but it was up to the group to decide how to split up the tasks and when to schedule deadlines before the finished assignments was due. This development plan allowed us to keep track of our work and remind us of anything that we might have missed.
2. Client Proposal/Client Survey
Once we decided on the client, it was time to figure out what the client was want most in the website. What were some functionalities/features that the client wanted to focus on the most? Asking general questions such as this would give us an idea on how to design the website that is both appealing to the audience and the client.
After an interview with the client and his needs, it was time to put it on paper and analyze all the information we had. For each question that we had asked and received an answer for, we wrote a summary describing in general the needs for that question, and then we wrote a brief design idea for the website and the implementations. This three-step process greatly helped us get started with what the client wanted to focus on the most and what design features we can brainstorm with.

After getting some general ideas to the design and functionality of the website, we wanted to evaluate the website with the client and compare it to other websites that fall under the same category of catering/craft services. Gauging the competition allowed us to see what type of designs and functionality works best.

Observing and noting the differences in other catering/craft services gave us a more clear understanding of how to portray the services and make them seem engaging. Being able to have a basis as to what functionality to include helped us organize a priority list — a list that lists the most important features that we hope to accomplish in the website.

3. User Interviews/User Surveys/Interview Data
Once we had a basis of functionality, it was time to figure out who our audience was and what they wanted. Because after all, this website is for them, right?
Our three main client groups are Production Managers, Event Coordinators, and Yelpers. Through the interviews, we were able to understand what all three users think are most important to them when searching for a craft service that satisfies their needs. The interviews allowed us to generate multiple personas with their own unique needs. With the diverse amount of data gathered, we were able to create many different user scenarios and use cases that we could potentially incorporate into the development of the Sunday Night Dinner website. We were also able to extract specific features/functionalities that we thought were necessary to have in order to create a website that all users can be happy with.

4. Creative Brief
After receiving all the data that we needed to get the ball rolling, it was time for our team to brainstorm and figure out which features we thought were most important and necessary. We decided on five pages that encompassed all aspects of the craft service while providing enough information for the audience. A home page, an about us page, a services page, a clients page, and a contact us page was the most concise way to portray all of the information. We discussed the basic content and design of each page.

We then tried looking at the needs through the perspective of the clients. We set the personality and tone of the website, focusing mainly on professionalism and reliability all while hinting at the fact that this company and the services offered are based off of a real person; someone they can communicate with.
Now it was the most fun part of any design project, brainstorming and prototyping. We started with a basic wireframe done on paper. We incorporated features used by other websites while spicing it up with our own design ideas.

5. Mood Board/Competitive Analysis
As part of the project, our team had to create a presentation to the class and discuss our competitors and what they did well and what they could have improved on. This allowed us to deeply research into their websites and find many small features that we could potentially use.
In our presentation, we divided the features into six parts: Branding, Functionality, Content, Site Architecture, Navigation, and Design. Just reiterating what features are important really helped us solidify what we should implement in our own website.

Also a part of our presentation was a mood board. A mood board is basically a board of images, text, color, and design that we feel represents our website. In our mood board, we tried to convey a feeling or a “mood” that expresses sophistication that follows modern trends.

This mood board set the precedent of our website by reminding us to stick to designs that we sought out. The grid-like pictures, the four founding colors, and the bright design patterns are just some design features that we really wanted to adopt to make the website stand out among the competitors.
6. Wire-framing/Site Architecture and Functionality
As time got closer to the end of the quarter, our team became more successful with the wire-frames and the prototypes. We started using the application, InVision to create a more complex wireframe with notes noting the functionalities of each button on each page.


Through peer feedback, we redesigned some aspects of each page, such as the layout of the pictures, and the amount of text for each description.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Sunday Night Dinner website was as close as we imagined it to be, with features that we planned on incorporating from the beginning.
One of the hardest tasks of this project was deciding on layouts for each page. Pages such as Services and Home needed special attention due to the large amount of pictures and text. We needed to find a way that balanced all the information without overwhelming the client with too much of each.
My favorite feature would have to be the Services page. Because we didn’t want it to be bland with just box after box, we did more research on how to minimize the content while still getting the information out there.

This project was by far my favorite because we built a website from scratch. We went through the entire process of user research and user experience to find the most ideal features. We had complete control of what we wanted to do and that allowed constructive brainstorming and prototyping. The team was also a good group of balanced skills. We all brought useful resources and that tremendously helped us work together.
