OpenTable

OpenTable connects diners with restaurants, serving millions worldwide. During my time there, the focus was on enhancing consumer tools like the mobile app and search, while optimizing restaurant operations through new software.

Through my design firm, Small Pond Studios, I created OpenTable’s first web experience. After selling the firm, I continued as OpenTable's primary UX designer, leading efforts for both consumer and restaurant-facing tools, including the mobile app, search flows, and restaurant software, during a critical growth phase.

Highlights

My Role: Product owner + lead designer
  • App praised by Apple, used by millions
  • Consistent 4.5+ star app rating
  • Full range of web, mobile, customer and restaurant-facing user experiences
  • Contract UX lead from 0 to IPO and beyond

OpenTable + Apple

I was selected as the creative lead to join a three-person strike team at Apple’s headquarters. Tasked with redesigning OpenTable’s mobile app to take full advantage of the new, larger phone display, I collaborated directly with Apple’s team to create a cutting-edge experience. Our work culminated in the app being showcased to millions during an Apple keynote, presented by Phil Schiller.

Universal reservation widget

The original reservation widget was overly complex, making it hard for restaurants to implement and often resulting in a frustrating experience for diners. I simplified it to intuitive horizontal or vertical layouts with light or dark themes, ensuring it adapted seamlessly to any restaurant website while retaining full reservation functionality.

Before: Overwhelming configuration options limited adoption by restaurants and often confused diners.
After: Simplified options made implementation easier for third-party developers, increasing adoption and creating a cleaner, more professional experience that built trust with diners.

OPentable remote manager

OpenTable makes it's money from happy restaurateurs. We created a suite of tools to help them manage reservations and customer relationships. OpenTable Remote Manager was developed for the restaurant manager to quickly see how busy any particular night would be as well as who would be arriving and if any special treatment should be noted.

Evolving a legacy design for better performance

I designed the first OpenTable Web experience with my team at Small Pond Studios in the early 2000s. The site served them so well that they were reluctant to make any significant changes. I continued to work with the product and engineering teams at OpenTable for many years giving new life to the old design system and optimizing performance without requiring a major overhaul.

The search results page redesign increased standard reservation conversion by 12% and "1,000 point" reservations (which generated 3X revenue) by 18%.”…
… It's like finding a couple of million dollars in the sofa cushions…”
OpenTable Senior Project Manager

Prototyping the future

After years of remaining mostly unchanged, the design was becoming outdated. I developed a responsive web prototype to show what a modern restaurant browsing experience could be. The prototype lead the way for the mobile app redesign that was featured by Apple and later inspired OpenTable to pursue a full brand redesign.