Green Basil Thai Restaurant
Duration
March 2025 - May 2025
Role
Lead Developer
Skills
Svelte, Figma, HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Team
Ethan Li (UX/UI), Tirsten Lisondra (UX/UI), Max Li (Project Supervisor)
Link to Website
Overview
Introduction to the Client
Green Basil Thai Restaurant is located in Burnaby, BC, and has been a cornerstone of Thai cuisine since 2006. For this project, our team was tasked with redesigning and modernizing their website to appeal to a new generation of customers.
The Problem
How might we create a digital identity to appeal to a younger demographic of customers?
The Process
Stage 1: Making a Plan
I approached the planning stage with a learn-first mentality. This involved maintaining constant communication with the design team, and learning how to create all of the different pages and interactions using a Svelte, a new framework for me.
As a result, I developed my collaboration and communication skills by offering my UX knowledge in team meetings to help the design team create user-friendly interactions.
Stage 2: Development
Being the sole developer of the project, it was important for me to maintain constant communication with the devlopment team during the dev process to ensure all aspects of the site were executed accordingley. This also included regular check-ins with the client to keep them updated and get their approval on new changes.
In the working process, I focused on constantly testing responsiveness, link validity, and interaction design, etc., to achieve the desired results. Additionally, I adopted a rigid schedule to keep myself on task and ensure that progress was always being made.
Stage 3: Reflection
The struggle:As a first-time solo developer working with a lesser-known framework like Svelte, debugging was a tedious process. An instance of this was an issue with the snap-scrolling effect on certain pages, where the overflow margins would be incorrect, or other features would no longer function.
The solution:While the fix ended up being a simple CSS error, an important thing that this taught me was to re-evaluate and come back to a problem with a different mindset. Instead of getting stuck on this one bug, I was able to be productive in other areas and develop separate skills, so that by the time this bug resurfaced to the top of my to-do list, I was ready to tackle it.
Stage 4: Going Forward
What I Would do Different
One of the main things I learned was the importance of web scaffolding. If I were to do this project again, rather than planning along the way, I would first collect all the data I need, organize it into JavaScript files that have the parameters of the data sorted into the groups needed, and then begin the HTML and CSS.
What I Learned
I gained many skills throughout this project, most significantly working within Svelte, a UI framework, for the first time. I learned about the importance of proper scaffolding, the length of the iterative process and debugging, and how to keep a consistent work schedule to keep a team motivated.