This work started in the unstable post-pandemic period, when restaurants needed digital menus and ordering without taking on one more external tool. I worked as principal product designer in a team of one, partnering closely with product management to shape both the feature strategy and the product behavior behind it.
Restaurants were under pressure to adapt how they presented menus and served customers. QR access was useful, but the stronger opportunity was bringing that capability into the platform they already used instead of adding more operational drag.
The design problem was not only a QR menu surface. It had to connect merchant configuration, publishing, and customer-facing output in a way that felt native to the broader product.
Once customers were already inside the menu, the same system could evolve toward ordering and eventually payment. That gave the work strategic depth beyond a short-term retention response.
The strongest decision was to reduce tool sprawl for merchants. Instead of solving the immediate menu problem with another disconnected service, the better product move was to absorb that capability into the existing restaurant platform.
That made the work more strategic. The question became how to extend the product into QR-based ordering in a way that strengthened the whole ecosystem, rather than simply shipping one more surface.
The design challenge was to connect configuration, publishing, and customer-facing output. Merchants needed a setup flow that matched how they already think about menus and products. At the same time, the resulting QR experience had to render clearly for customers, work under real restaurant conditions, and leave room for later iteration.
MVP configuration focused on fast QR generation and menu selection. V2 expanded control with branding, display modes, and menu-level setup.
The first version focused on utility: get a working QR menu into restaurants quickly, with as little setup friction as possible. That was the right tradeoff for the moment.
From there, the product moved into a more expressive second phase. Merchants gained control over display mode, highlight color, menu selection, logo, and background image. On the customer side, the menu evolved from a generated document into a stronger product surface with clearer hierarchy and ordering emphasis.
The sequence moved from QR access, to a more configurable menu, to bill handling and payment directly inside the experience.