The Experience

Above is the output of this exercise: a re-arranged menu of my favorite Korean cafe. I get fried chickens here, their Jjigae is excellent, and their tteokbokki is 🔥 . The problem with the fried chickens is that sometimes I do not want the big 8 pieces dish. I want something smaller and simpler to eat, just for lunch, but the menu doesn't provide that option. Below are the two versions of the current menu that I see more than tens of times already.

Once I used a delivery app to order the food, and noticed the menu on the app has more flexibility in ordering size of portion, fries, sauces, etc. I wasn't sure, to the point that I scrolled up to make sure this was the same café. On the weekend, I ate at the restaurant again and I found the problems.

The problems

Problem 1: I could have ordered a smaller boneless chicken all this time??

Yangnyeom Chicken is an 8-pieces chicken with restaurant’s specialty red sauce. It is placed in Fried Chickens section. What I didn’t know is there is a smaller boneless version of Yangnyeom Chicken called Gochu chicken inside Snacks, which I think aren’t really snacks, because they have Large and Smaller options. If they're Large it couldn't have possible be snacks, can it? Define snacks. I found this out after the third visit.

Problem 2: We’ve established Gochu Chicken is actually boneless Yangnyeom Chicken, but why are they treated differently?

Yangnyeom Chicken with cheese is Cheesy Yangnyeom Chicken. While Gochu Chicken with cheese is “mozzarela add on”. Why? Can’t we add mozzarella to all fried chickens? It's cheese. We all want to bathe in cheese.

Problem 3: Are cheesy fries exclusive for Gochu Chicken?

There is a dish “Gochu Chicken & Cheesy Fries”, but why can’t I order other fried chickens with cheesy fries? Are cheesy fries not delicious when paired with other chickens? Cheesy fries are good with anything, it's cheesy fries.

Problem 4: Why don’t House Specials made to feel special?

The restaurant has two menus, I think one is older, and the other one is newer, after a redesign in book format. In the older one, House Specials are placed at the end. In the book format (newer), House Specials are placed in the middle of the book. If they are placed like these, how do customers know they are special?

The Solution

Step 1: Order the dishes

Create the taxonomy of all the dishes in the restaurant. Categorize the dishes based on type of dish (fried chickens with other fried chickens, toasts with snacks, etc.). I only screenshot the fried chicken section below because the chart would be too large and a pain to see. I'm using Zoe Tey's method to order the products and categories.

Step 2: Make the Menu

From the chart above, it's easier to re-arrange the menu now,. We can see the hierarchy and the variants pattern.

• Start from fried chickens, just because it's my favorite and I assume it's actually what people come for.

• We see that the cheese and cheesy fries are only available to Gochu Chicken and Honey Butter Fried Chicken, but as problem statement above, they are actually good with almost anything. So I add it as an extra for all fried chickens.

• Add the specialties in the middle of the menu and highlight it.

There we go. The outcome is at the top of the page.

Note: The name of the cafe and the address have been modified. I’m not a staff, nor affiliated with the cafe. I genuinely like this place and I really think they can do better with the IA.