Restaurant Web Design
Recent research has revealed that almost 90% of diners now research restaurants online before they decide to go eat at them. Needless to say, those who invest in careful and well tailored restaurant web design are inherently poised to soak up the lion's share of the market, which has become so dependent on the web. Both new and repeat customers expect to be able to identify with all resources provided online, which makes it surprising how many neglect to consider this in their own restaurant web design strategies.
Across the board, there are two kinds of restaurant web design examples which make up the overwhelming majority of the market:
- Amateur - This covers the restaurant web design ideas created by the amateur, perhaps with no real experience in the industry and in exchange for a free dinner.
- OTT - The incredibly expensive, ostentatious and perhaps even pretentious sites that are masterpieces to view, but offer no practical information - or perhaps require ridiculous navigational steps to find it.
Further research, though the results are hardly surprising to say the least, has conclusive proven that when users look to a
restaurant web design of any sort, they are looking to find these items of information and ONLY these:
- Menus including descriptions and prices (Lack of pricing is the number - one cause for immediate lack of interest)
- Drink lists and prices
- Photos of what to expect, without going overboard
- Contact details
- Opening hours
- Clear Directions
- Feedback forms
- Specials and events (Only if updated daily as dated information is a huge put-off)
Quite literally any other inclusions in the
restaurant web design are superfluous to requirements and serve to potentially cause as much harm as good. Of course, flash content, multimedia and the like can add to the impact considerably if used with expert care and precision, though finding the balance is clearly not the job for the faint hearted most believe it to be, as proven by thousands of quite disastrous
restaurant web design examples doing the rounds today.