Redesign

User Interface and User Experience

Space Assessment

This document outlines our assessments for a proposed redesign of Yen Ching, a local Chinese restaurant located at 810 W. Lincoln Highway in DeKalb, IL. In 1986, the Yin’s started their first restaurant on Fourth Street in DeKalb, IL. The business was strong enough for the family business to move to a larger location in 1990.  The current location is close to the campus of Northern Illinois University (NIU) and they were able to sustain business due to the new location and their authentic Chinese food.

Online reviews from Trip Advisor 4/5 (24 reviews) rated #15/85 restaurants in DeKalb and Yelp 4.5/5 (60 reviews) helped share insight to the this long-standing local restaurant. With only 3 total one-star and 46 five-star ratings between the two sites, the restaurant is well-received and supported by both locals and visitors to the area. The food quality is described as fresh, fantastic and a Chinese favorite but with each review also followed up that Yen Ching has incredibly unique customer service. Many people love the décor but some know it’s not a fancy place, Mary of DeKalb left this review: “Our favorite local Chinese restaurant! Don't expect fancy, updated décor, 'cause it's not that kind if place. However, if you want to be treated like family and enjoy fabulous food, Yen Ching is the bees knees. Our favorites are the Mu Shu Chicken, Szechuan Pork, and the egg rolls. Marilyn makes each visit special and treats everyone like royalty.

There are several things that will need to be redesigned based on our initial look at the restaurant. As we begin our experience at Yen Ching starting with entering the building we notice the exterior and that the signage is outdated and could use freshening up.

There is not a lot of parking and majority of the parking spaces are located around the back of the building. The parking lines are also worn out making it difficult for customers to distinguish where or how to situate their cars in the parking lot. Little did we know this was a foreshadowing of what was to come. When you look at the restaurant from the street it is so far back from the sidewalk that one would think they could enter from the main doors. However, this is not true and the decorated front entrance door is only there for aesthetic reasons. You have to go around to the side in order to enter the restaurant.  After a closer look at the appearance of the infrastructure, we noticed there was a leaking gutter.

Entering from the side doors, there is a hallway that the front door immediately opens to. Those doors are quite ornate but as you pass the cobwebs to enter the inner lobby you wonder the last time they used the now boarded up entryway.

As you enter the restaurant, it is dark and unwelcoming, If you had not visited before, you might think that no one was there. There is a hostess station, from perhaps when business was booming, that is now only strangely reminiscent of where someone would be waiting to greet you and ask if you have reservations. After this awkward pause and no signage to direct you, you step in and are unable to take it in the layout or options of where to sit because you notice it is not well lit anywhere except ahead of you. The restaurant is large and open. Lighting is dim and does not highlight the decor of the restaurant. The lighting almost seems moody (which may work for dinner, but not at 11:30a). Also, there are not many windows and the windows they do have are all at the front of the restaurant.

As we make your way into the only lit seating area, we see a few guests sitting at booths along the back wall.  The only other customers in the restaurant are males, and they are both eating alone. It is silent with no music playing in the background making it is an oddly quiet restaurant. We are greeted by the owner Marilyn as we choose a table and begin to scan the layout. Everything looks somewhat time capsuled and old, but functionally still in working manner.  You wonder how this restaurant is still around after 28 years at this location. It is not because of the ambiance. What comes into focus is that it feels more like a home and we were guests here for dinner. Perhaps when it was new it must have seemed authentic with large traditional Chinese art on the walls and a huge warrior statues at the entrance, and large red pillars.

There are three off-putting and unignorably elements we notice while waiting for our food.

First, a picture collage hangs on the wall of individual loose pictures hung with (likely) tape. The picture collage seems bulky on wall and looks unkempt, unprofessional, and unsanitary for a restaurant setting. Next, similar to the pictures, loose money was hanging from the wall. Access paper easily collects dirt. The money not only looks unprofessional, it is a potential environmental hazard. If money is representative of certain customers or financial milestones, there must be a cleaner (both environmentally and aesthetically) way to display them. Lastly, the capacious layout makes the restaurant drafty and thus chilled on the inside. We suspect the same occurs in the summer with warmer air.

    Yen Ching’s menu has many different and bold colors. The front and back pages of the menu are bright pink and the words on the front and back are very large. Words on a menu assist guests in determining what they would like to eat, and when these words are large and bold, it becomes very overwhelming and that was our general consensus regarding the menu. It was overwhelming to read and very hard to make a decision regarding what to eat.