SUMMARY
As part of their 2025 rebrand, Chinatown Restaurant SF aimed to revitalize their digital presence by redesigning their website and developing design documentation. The goal was to transform Chinatown Restaurant SF’s digital presence by leveraging UX and SEO strategies to drive customer traffic, boost engagement, and increase reservations.
TIMEFRAME
September 2024 - Present
TOOLS USED
Squarespace, Prompt Engineering, Ubersuggest, Userbob, Photoshop/Illustrator
MY ROLE
UX/UI Designer, SEO Analyst, Web Designer, Graphic Designer
Design Goals
Problem Statement
Business Goals
Leveraging my marketing and UX/UI expertise, the goal was to craft a cohesive design strategy that tells a focused and compelling story than what was on the previous site. This involved collaborating closely with the restaurant’s owner to understand the business’s rich history and unique value proposition. Additionally, I conducted qualitative research, including analyzing customer testimonials and social media feedback, to gain deeper insights into their audience.
A secondary goal was to enhance local search engine optimization (SEO) strategies while maintaining accessibility within the constraints of the client’s existing tech platform, Squarespace.
Problem
The client, while making commendable efforts to support her family’s restaurant, shared that the business had been struggling to recover post-pandemic. Without a strong digital presence, the restaurant struggled to attract new customers, leading to lower foot traffic and declining revenue. Competitors with stronger online visibility were pulling potential customers away, creating an urgent request to improve visibility metrics.
To me, this wasn't a usability problem, it was a visibility problem. Despite their history, the business wasn't appearing in searches when customers were looking online. My goal was to improve the restsaurant's discoverability through a combination of SEO and UX.
Discovery Phase
Understanding the User Space
Lean UX Research
With lmited resources for research and design, I employed lean UX techniques to gather actionable insights. This involved analyzing competitors’ digital strategies and reviewing customer feedback to identify gaps. From this, I discovered that 65-70% of customers valued the restaurant's historic legacy, a unique aspect we decided to emphasize in the new design to tell a complete story.
Heritage ad Competitive Advantage
My hypothesis about the importance of the restaurant’s history was confirmed during my visit. The owner shared that many returning customers cherished the memories and heritage tied to the establishment, which dates back to 1919. This emotional connection became a key value proposition, as no competitor could replicate this storied legacy.
Key User Insights
Streamlining Reservations
The restaurant's previous website relied on OpenTable for reservations, but it was rarely used. To simplify the booking process, we integrated a 'Book with Google' feature, leveraging its intuitive design and encourage more reservations. Additionally, as the restaurant’s reviews were generally better on Google, we wanted to foster confidence that this was a place people who wanted to experience an authentic dining option can confidently go to.
Digital Marketing Opportunities
While the previous website included photos, they were low-quality and failed to reflect the restaurant's brand. Additionally, the oversimplified design underutilized SEO opportunities inherent in the Squarespace platform. We introduced high-quality imagery, improved visual storytelling, and optimized content layout for both SEO and accessibility—ensuring an engaging experience that reflects the restaurant’s authenticity and drives customer trust.
Building Cohesiveness Through Documentation
MVP
Multiple Touchpoint Journey
Despite its rich history, Chinatown Restaurant SF had never developed a cohesive branding strategy, iresulting in visible inconsistencies across its website, menus, and other customer touchpoints. I believed that by using the website as an MVP and building updated marketing around it, we could enhance customer trust through consistency.
To streamline the design process, I consolidated insights from conversations with the restaurant owner, competitive market analyses (CMAs), and quantitative research into a single, lightweight design system document. This system included brand colors, typography, and messaging guidelines, providing a scalable foundation for future branding efforts that was meant to compliment their platform choice. Additionally, this document continued to serve the restaurant when I began working on branding collateral including exterior posters and menus for a cohesive look and feel.
Growth Opportunities through Storytelling
Design Solution
Optimizing Squarespace
The client had already set up their restaurant website on Squarespace, and my goal was not to reinvent the wheel. Squarespace provided an easy plug-and-play solution, meeting their basic needs. However, the previous version lacked critical features like SEO optimization and accessibility, which limited growth opportunities.
To address this, I treated the existing site as a business MVP, focusing on keyword optimization to test its potential for driving traffic. I optimized metadata, improved site loading times, streamlined the user experience, and ensured images and copy were aligned with SEO best practices. These efforts resulted in a 130% increase in traffic prior to implementing the full redesign, laying the groundwork for even greater growth.
Merging User and Business Needs
Although the goal of the redesign was simple, to create more opportunities for growth and branding, I decided to utilize UX techniques such as unmodereted testing in order to ensure that user and business needs were aligned, Interviews with the restaurant owner and analysis of social media reviews revealed that the restaurant’s rich history was its most compelling selling point. Using this insight, I emphasized storytelling and heritage throughout the new design.
To validate the changes, I conducted usability tests using Userbob’s one-minute sessions. These tests confirmed that the booking process was intuitive, and the new design successfully instilled confidence in visitors through improved visuals and storytelling. This was a significant improvement over the previous design, which lacked clarity and emotional connection.
“Jason is a pro! He's organized, communicative, thorough, and has the experience to help you improve your online presence in ways you hadn't thought of. Working with Jason is a great relief and will allow you to focus better on your business.”
– Nancy Quan
1. Original Design
The original Chinatown Restaurant website was a long scrolling page, making key details hard to find. Poor design choices, along with weak SEO and accessibility tags, led to low search rankings and poor discoverability.
What's Next?
Relaunching the Brand
Monitor search rankings and user engagement through Google Analytics to ensure sustained impact, as even small design changes can affect performance.
Collaborate with stakeholders to enhance marketing materials and reinforce brand trust, driving further growth for Chinatown Restaurant SF.