Little Saigon is a Vietnamese restaurant that brings Vietnamese home-cooked meals to Helsinki. My role was to redesign and develop their website, enhance SEO rankings and carry out copywriting. This project is designed in Figma and developed in Webflow.
I identified that the restaurant's website had unclear structure and a lack of crucial information. The main challenge was on inconsistent branding, which is why I focused on establishing their authority through a website that communicated Little Saigon's mission and values in a clear and compelling way. Since the main goal was to build authority, I focused more on the visual side of the website.
Since I had worked at Little Saigon as a customer servant for a little while, I already had an idea of what the users would need. Deeper discussion with the owner, competitor analysis and a small survey with six participants deepened my understanding even more. I utilized the research findings to write user stories and to create a user journey.
I primarily designed the pages for mobile. I started with wireframes and developed them to end up to high-fidelity prototype with the help of a style guide, that I eventually used also for designing their printed menu and other documents. The branding of the website was based on Little Saigon's values and young target audience. The focus in visuality was to create a modern and clear website that was compelling to the user to try the restaurant's dishes.
Considering the simple goals and structure of the website, I only anticipated one round of iteration. However, I wanted to ensure functionality before proceeding with the web development. Therefore, I tested the usability of the high-fidelity prototype with six users that were familiar with the restaurant, assigning them tasks such as checking specific dish's allergens. They then shared their feedback on the experience which revealed few small areas for improvement.
I built the new website on the foundations of the old website in Webflow. Since there was no structure, I removed elements from the old pages and started the development from scratch. Once the website was built, I anticipated copywriting based on the owner's preferences and added animations. I made only minor changes to the SEO settings, as the biggest SEO improvement came from the website's structure and content.
The new website has received positive feedback from both the client and their customers. Customers who previously struggled with the old website's structure no longer seek assistance, indicating that the new website is user-friendly. Due to improved SEO, the website now ranks higher on Google. While Little Saigon’s customer base has increased, it is challenging to say if the new website has been part of it since I didn't unfortunately collect any website data.
“I hired Niina to create a website for my restaurant, and the result exceeded my expectations. Working with Niina is easy. She is very attentive to my ideas and made them even better. A big plus. She has greatly helped in developing ideas, and it showed in the final outcome. I absolutely recommend Niina.”
© Niina Nummela
