Table Booking

Commute | Transport

Mobile Application

UI/UX

Product Design

India

2022

Lift up, a commuting app to make your travel simpler and efficient as well. It would empower you to not just request rides but also offer one if required, making the commute safe, cost-effective and environment-friendly.

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Sector

Hospitality | Management

Service

Web Application

UI/UX

Product Design

Live | Australia | 2024

Table Booking is a platform made for an Australian demography, helping restaurants making reservations and managing them.

Note: Project is under NDA, hence some

details are omitted & left out

Table booking n Reservation management

Table Booking is a web platform that simplifies reservations for restaurants and cafes across Australia, managing multiple venues and user roles effortlessly. It’s designed to keep operations smooth and booking processes seamless.

The Problem

Restaurants and cafes in Australia often struggle with managing reservations effectively, especially as customer expectations for fast and seamless booking systems grow. Many establishments still rely on outdated or fragmented tools that don’t support multiple users or the needs of staff with different roles.

This lack of a streamlined approach can lead to miscommunication, double bookings, and operational inefficiencies. Managing multiple locations further complicates the process, resulting in lost revenue and dissatisfied customers. With the growing demand for efficient reservation systems, restaurants need a better way to handle bookings and improve overall customer experience.

Research & Insights

To identify the key challenges restaurants and cafes face in managing reservations, I collaborated closely with the client and gathered insights from the secondary research. This research included analyzing similar platforms and taking inspiration from industry-leading solutions.

By studying how existing systems handle bookings, user roles, and multi-location management, we gained a clearer understanding of what works well and where current systems fall short.

Fragmented Systems: Many restaurants use outdated tools that don’t integrate well with modern systems. These tools lack the ability to manage multiple users with different roles (e.g., managers, hosts) or support multi-establishment operations efficiently.
User Roles & Permissions: Staff members at different levels need access to specific parts of the booking process, but existing systems either don’t allow role-based access or are too complex for smaller teams to navigate.
Multi-Venue Management: Restaurants that manage multiple locations struggle to find tools that can handle bookings across venues under one unified platform. This leads to communication breakdowns and booking errors.
Customer Expectations: With the rise of instant services, customers expect quick, seamless, and reliable booking systems. Delays or errors in handling reservations were cited as major pain points in customer feedback.

These insights informed our design process, leading to the development of a flexible, scalable system tailored to the specific needs of restaurants and cafes in Australia. By addressing the pain points of fragmented systems, user role management, and multi-location operations, the platform aims to significantly improve efficiency and the overall user experience for both staff and customers

Approach

Our approach to designing the Table Booking platform was all about keeping things user-friendly and focused on solving real problems. We kicked off the project by having in-depth conversations with the client to grasp their unique needs and the challenges restaurants face in managing reservations. Alongside this, we tapped into secondary research provided by the product manager, which included insights from the industry and a look at similar platforms to see what works and what doesn’t.

From there, we adopted an iterative design process, refining the platform through several stages while staying responsive to feedback:

1. Wireframing & Prototyping: We began with wireframes to map out a simple, intuitive layout that would make booking a breeze. These prototypes were shared with stakeholders to gather early feedback and ensure we were on the right track.

2. User Roles & Permissions: Understanding that different staff members have different responsibilities, we designed a system that accommodates various user roles, like managers and hosts. This allows each team member to access exactly what they need without feeling overwhelmed.

3. Managing Multiple Locations: For restaurants with more than one venue, we created a dashboard that lets them manage all their reservations in one place. This seamless approach helps reduce booking errors and keeps everyone on the same page.

4. Easy-to-Use Design: We focused on a clean and simple user interface that can handle high volumes of bookings without becoming cluttered. The goal was to minimize clicks and make it as easy as possible for staff to manage reservations efficiently.

5. Iterative Feedback: After each design phase, we gathered feedback from the client and team members. This helped us refine our solutions and ensure we were addressing all the challenges identified earlier.

Final Outcome

Booking Screens

Booking section offers a number of features for the staff or assigned user to approve reservation requests and also making the reservations by themselves on the behalf of their customers

The Assigned users can directly check the reservation requests from the side panel, showing the requests with their preferences and also a tab for approved requests or reservations made.

Restraunts

Table Booking is capable of catering large restaurant chains and franchises at a same platform , where any user with admin permissions or the owner of chains can access all the info about their restaurants registered on the platform. Admins and the assigned users can add new restaurants, see & edit details, add & remove users and also delete the whole restaurant too.

Users

The platform allows to add n amount of users with specific role based accesses throughout the different restaurants, assigning specific task and permission helps the restaurants in managing the tasks more efficiently. Table Booking also provides the users with info around the restaurants shifts and timings .

Tables & Seatings

The platform allows to provide required details for seatings like the capacity and the features they come ex- Open, AC, WiFi. It helps later on when attending to the reservation requests and their preferences.

Future Plans

For the next version of Table Booking, we have a lot of exciting ideas to make the platform even better for restaurants and their customers. Here are some features and improvements we could focus on:

1. Analytics & Insights: Adding a dashboard that gives restaurant managers useful data like busy hours, customer preferences, and booking patterns. This will help them make smarter decisions and optimize their operations.

2. Customer Profiles & Rewards: Let restaurants create profiles for customers, tracking their booking history, preferences, and any special requests. This could also include loyalty programs, where regular customers earn rewards like discounts or priority seating.

3. Mobile App for Managers: Build a mobile app that allows restaurant staff to manage bookings on the go. This will make it easier for managers to keep track of reservations, even when they aren’t at the restaurant.

4. POS Integration: Connect the booking system with the restaurant’s POS (Point of Sale) system to streamline billing and order management. This makes things easier for both staff and customers, improving overall service.

5. Waitlist Feature: Add a waitlist option where customers can join online and get real-time updates on when their table will be ready, making the experience smoother and more predictable.

The Learnings

Iterative Design Process : Iteration played a central role in refining the product. I learned how essential it is to revisit and tweak designs based on client feedback and user testing, making the product stronger with each cycle.
Scalability in Design: Working on a platform that caters to both small cafes and large restaurant chains taught me the importance of creating scalable, flexible systems that can grow with the business, adapting to both smaller and larger operations.
Collaboration with Stakeholders: Collaborating with the client and product manager throughout the project taught me the importance of working closely with stakeholders. It highlighted how good communication and feedback loops lead to a better, more aligned product.
Adaptability to Client Needs: Flexibly responding to the specific challenges of Australian restaurants showed me how to design products that are tailored to the unique needs of a target market, making the solution more effective and relevant

Conclusion

By addressing the key challenges restaurants and cafes face in managing reservations, the Table Booking platform successfully delivers a solution that is both flexible and user-friendly.
Through an iterative design process, we were able to streamline multi-location booking management, ensure seamless role-based access for staff, and create a smooth, easy-to-use interface.
The result is a platform that enhances operational efficiency, reduces booking errors, and ultimately improves the customer experience for restaurants across Australia.
This project not only solved the immediate pain points identified during our research but also set the foundation for future scalability. Table Booking now serves as a valuable tool for restaurants, helping them meet the growing expectations of their customers while making day-to-day operations easier for their teams.