One of the projects I have done in the Design for Mobile course I teach is to have students design and build responsive restaurant websites. Responsive design has been around since 2010, and really picked up steam as mobile use of the web started to surpass desktop use of the web towards the end of 2013. However, restaurant websites often lag behind. Often, even today, you find yourself out and about with only your phone handy, trying to pinch and zoom a pdf of a menu linked from a restaurant website, to try to decide if you want to stop there for a meal. It’s a terrible experience for users and a great opportunity for students to think about how that experience could be better.
Students are tasked with building a website for a restaurant that extends the experience and can be used properly on a mobile device. They have to determine what the restaurant’s market is and design and build a site that would appeal to their audience. The example provided here, by Amanda Burnham, is from a few years ago, but I really like it. Amanda is an amazing designer and web professional, and I very lucky to have had her in my classes. She has since graduated, and you can check out her professional portfolio site.
