During the creation of the initial mockups and sketches for Alley Cat Cafe's website redesign, I engaged in extensive brainstorming by placing myself in the shoes of potential consumers to gain an understanding of what constitutes a great website. Upon conducting demographic research on Stratford through Statistics Canada, I discovered that a significant proportion of the city's population are seniors. This fact heavily influenced my decision to adopt a minimalist and simple design for the website, using subdued colours that are easy on the eyes.
Design Rationale
The previous website for Alley Cat Cafe had numerous issues related to font spacing, size, and style that rendered it difficult to read. From my analysis, it became clear that most website visitors were interested in visiting the cafe in person to interact with the cats, which is the cafe's main attraction. Thus, I decided to feature a direct hyperlink for booking visits. Furthermore, hours of operation, location, and contact information for the Alley Cat Cafe is prominently shown on the homepage. This would enable users to find what they were looking for quickly and easily.
I categorized Alley Cat Cafe's menu, cats, about us, and other pertinent information into different sections, which would serve as the primary navigation menu for website visitors. Although this approach was similar to the original Alley Cat Cafe website, the new categories were more consistent and of equal importance. Overall, the goal of this high-fidelity website prototype is to include updated features and several elements that significantly improve the website's design, content, and usability.
Original
Redesigned
