TAP.

EAT.

REPEAT.

Turning long lines into loyal customers through better design.

Role
UX/UI Designer

Timeline
4 Weeks

Focus Areas
Order Flow | Item Customization | Menu Discovery

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Chow Chalet is a gourmet food truck known for bold flavors, big personality, and a loyal following. It quickly became a favorite for weekday lunch pop-ups among young professionals and a go-to for date nights and weekend outings.

But as its popularity grew, so did the friction.
Long lines, missed customizations, and outdated punch cards frustrated customers—especially during peak hours when timing mattered most.

The challenge? Solve these problems without losing what made Chow Chalet special. I designed a mobile-first web app that kept the brand’s energy and charm front and center—while making it easier to browse the menu, personalize orders, and skip the wait.

SUMMARY

“How might we help users order quickly and customize meals—without losing the fun of the food truck experience?”

CONTRAINTS

PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

As a lean business, Chow Chalet needed a cost-effective solution they could deploy quickly.

We opted to design a mobile-optimized web app to:

  • Minimize development costs

  • Avoid building for multiple OS platforms

  • Launch faster

  • Ensure access without downloads

These constraints became guardrails for the design process, shaping a solution that balanced speed, accessibility, and simplicity.

EMPATHIZING TO INFORM DESIGN

To create a solution that truly served Chow Chalet’s customers, I began by conducting user interviews and translating those insights into personas and journey maps. These tools helped me understand not just what users were doing—but how they felt at every stage of the experience.

While many mobile food-ordering solutions already exist, I didn’t want to assume those patterns would fit a food truck experience. To validate my assumptions, I conducted quick primary research to see whether Chow Chalet’s users shared the same needs as those of traditional brick-and-mortar diners.

What I found was clear: customers loved the bold flavors and personality of Chow Chalet. It was a favorite for weekday lunches and weekend outings, but the experience didn’t always live up to the food’s hype. During peak times, users often felt rushed, stressed, and unsupported.

BEYOND THE FLAVOR

Pain Points

  • Long lines made browsing difficult

  • Pressure at the window led to rushed orders

  • Paper punch cards were often lost or forgotten

  • No way to order ahead during busy events

What They Needed

  • Space to explore the menu without stress

  • Simple, customizable ordering

  • A quicker, more modern way to skip the line

  • Digital rewards that were easy to access

These insights guided a solution that reduced friction while keeping the flavor and fun that users already loved.

Armed with user insights, my design mission was twofold: to craft a user experience that seamlessly blended efficiency with Chow Chalet's commitment to delivering a premium food truck experience. The objective? To develop an app that not only facilitated swift and hassle-free ordering but also fostered an immersive and captivating user journey.

Let’s See What We Can Cook Up

Ideation & Prototyping

I initiated the design process by crafting wireframes focused on showcasing key app information prominently on the welcome screen and guiding users seamlessly through the ordering process. Subsequently, the order screen was meticulously designed to offer customers a streamlined, concise ordering experience, enabling them to easily edit and review their orders for accuracy before submission. These wireframes allowed me to visually map out user flows to ideate an intuitive user experience.

Prototyping

From these wireframes, I created a low-fidelity prototype with a primary focus on the food ordering flow, the application's main feature. This prototype allowed me to further visualize the way users would experience the product and would be my tool of choice for user testing.

You can view the full low-fidelity prototype below.

User Testing & Refinement

The Taste Test

To begin user testing, I recruited five users and assigned them a series of tasks to complete. The testing was conducted in person, allowing me to observe their interactions with the application. I followed up with a survey to compare their feedback with my observations. This research revealed several usability concerns:

  1. Users struggled to locate the section for updating personal information.

  2. The excessive number of screens confused users about their current task.

  3. The order customization options lacked individual item customization, which was a primary user concern.

To address the usability concerns, I began by rethinking the homescreen layout. Rethinking the layout allowed me to create a better flow for users as they’re placing an order and minimize the amount of screens the user had to interact with on to complete the task, which in turn brought me to rethink the way they navigated through the appplication. In doing so, I changed the food categories from being on drop downs from the menus screen to being a sliding navigation bar across the top of the screen. In doing so, at any point in the flow, the user would know where they are in the application and what they’re doing, eliminating the confusion that they previously had while using the application.

In addition to the adjustments in the way the app flow, I changed ambiguous icons, refined titles, and refined the colors to ensure accessibility and further enhance the user’s experience.

Design Mockups

Results

The Finished Product

The end result was a dynamic app that was:

  • Accessible: Achieved WCAG 2.1 AA compliance through rigorous testing

  • Effective: Usability testing showed 95% task success rate, 25% faster than previous version

  • Branded: Maintained consistent look and feel with 95% brand asset usage

The completion of this project allowed me to gain valuable knowledge about UX design principles that will inform and elevate my future work.

User Feedback

After completing this project, I conducted a follow-up study with the same participants:

  • 100% noted appreciation for my attention to detail

  • 95% felt their concerns were properly addressed

View the Design

To explore this design yourself, click the button below: