Global Tech: The future of food needs flawless interfaces

Why should you prioritize your restaurant’s website?

Well, because digital ordering is seeing an unprecedented upward surge, 300% faster than dine-in traffic since 2014, and a flawlessly functioning website has become one of the defining factors that could potentially make or break a food business.

Your website is a key sales channel and a powerful marketing tool. But it is also an extension of the customer experience and plays an essential role in developing credibility about the quality of your restaurant. Therefore your website should not only be a platform to sell your food but also offer an experience of who you are as a brand.

Make it as good as it can get!

Imagine a customer opens your website hoping to order some food, but the menu button is obscured by a barrage of redundant details or he is greeted with a blurry low-resolution photograph of a dish. It’s not going to take him long to abandon your site and move on to another.

Alarmingly, 88% of online consumers have said that they are less likely to return to a website after having a bad experience. Moreover, they lose trust in your brand, while also keeping other customers away as a result of a negative review.

Apparently, your restaurant website is indispensable to your overall success and the future of food business only belongs to those who

A good website design anticipates the information users are going to look for once they’re online while ensuring an interface that allows them to facilitate those actions in the easiest, most effortless and accessible of manners.

So when someone opens your website he/she should immediately understand the steps they need to take in order to arrive at their end purpose. Stated simply, a quality user interface is one that enables users to perform tasks with ease and speed thanks to a flawless, easy to navigate and user-friendly design. This can only be attained through a fluid blend of functionality and aesthetics, which a robust Restaurant Online Ordering System like Restolabs can offer.

Now that we’ve looked at the significance of flawless interfaces, let's delve into some salient points to note while designing an online ordering website.

Clear content

A user-friendly website provides customers with all the information that they need in a clear and concise format. A customer looking to order food online usually visits the restaurant site to look for the menu, opening hours, location, contact and delivery services offered.

These details should be communicated distinctly. It is said that if you can’t give the user what they want within three clicks, they’re bound to leave and it’s going to be hard to lure them back to your brand.

To ensure clarity, keep only those elements on the site that are logical and do away with anything that’s unnecessary. Before adding any small feature, ask yourself whether the customer really needs it to accomplish their goal. Use intelligible and visible labels to help users navigate the site.

The same goes for other elements in the interface including photographs, illustrations, text, color, typography etc. Caravan is a great example of a website with lucid content.

Great menu

The most visited page on your site, without a shred of doubt, will be the Menu. The first rule of thumb when designing one? Don’t upload a PDF file!

Especially today when technology allows you so many innovative options, you have no excuse to deliver a badly designed menu page. For instance, this menu by Mugs has an interactive design that made all the more memorable with popping colors and attractive pictures.

But no matter how great the aesthetics, the primary focus should always be on the ease of navigation and distinct descriptions. If your restaurant’s menu changes frequently, then you will need to update your website just as regularly, so remember that when designing the site.

Quick load time

A crucial aspect to assess when building a flawless website interface is its responsiveness. Consider this — 47% of consumers expect a web page to load within two seconds or less, while 40% will abandon a website that takes more than three seconds to load.

With a slow website, not only are you losing customers but also dropping on Google and other search engines’ rankings. There are many reasons that cause your page to load slowly and a common one is the use of too many high-resolution images. So while it's true that high-quality images are likely to arouse appetites, be careful of how and where you implement them on the website.

Effective branding

As we mentioned before, since your website is an extension of the overall customer experience, its visual language should effectively express your restaurant’s brand identity.

Every single element on the site should be consistent and feel like it’s an essential part of your brand. This can be achieved through cohesive color palettes, fonts and of course the logo which is the anchor tying up all the other components of the site.

Primo has a rustic logo and simple image of a fresh ingredient on its landing page, with the color brown and green dominating all the pages. This immediately evokes the sense of being on a farm surrounded by earthy fragrance. A perfect branding for a farm-to-table restaurant.

In order to achieve this stature, one needs to invest in a Restaurant online ordering platform that provides a branded website/app.

Mobile optimized

A survey of smart-phone users revealed that 81% of consumers searched for a restaurant using a mobile app and 92% did so through a mobile web browser.

By 2020 itself, mobile ordering is expected to be a $38 billion industry. Going by these statistics, it is evident that any restaurant that does not build a mobile-optimized website is bound to lag behind those who do.

How do you make it effective though? It’s best to keep only the most basic information on your mobile site. Too much information on a small screen can be quite off-putting. Remember that not all the desktop features are going to fit the mobile site. However, ensuring visual consistency across all platforms is crucial.

It takes a lot of time, effort and thought to create a restaurant website with a flawless interface. But the benefits that this will bring your business makes it totally worthwhile. With a user-friendly site that’s also aesthetically pleasing, you increase customer retention and conversion rates. At the same time, you also stand out from the competition and build a trustworthy brand that will stand the test of time.

Want to learn more about the features of a restaurant ordering website? Read here.