Restaurant Admin Table Booking System: Designing an Operational Control Panel for High-Volume Restaurant Reservations
Context
Managing table reservations at scale is a high-pressure operational task for restaurants — involving real-time decisions, customer coordination, and space optimization. This project focused on designing a Restaurant Admin dashboard that enables staff to efficiently configure bookings, manage tables, and make quick decisions during peak hours.
I worked end-to-end on the UX strategy, information architecture, and UI design for the restaurant admin side of the table booking system.
Details
Company:
Imobisoft
Platform:
Web-based Admin Dashboard
My Role:
UX strategy, information architecture & UI Design.
The Challenge
Restaurant admins often juggle multiple responsibilities simultaneously — managing walk-ins, reservations, staff coordination, and customer expectations. The challenge was to design an admin system that works in real operational environments, not ideal conditions.
The core problems identified were:
- No single source of truth for live bookings and table status
- Manual coordination for table assignment and release
- Complex booking rules (guests, timing, payments, cancellations)
- Difficulty visualizing floor occupancy in real time
- Limited visibility into customer history and patterns
Information Architecture
The Solution
The solution was a task-first admin experience that prioritizes speed, clarity, and control over visual excess. Instead of designing a generic dashboard, the interface was structured around how restaurants actually operate — bookings first, configuration second, reporting last.
Key design principles:
- Operational clarity over aesthetics
- Decision-first layouts (what needs action now?)
- Progressive disclosure to avoid overwhelming users
- Visual cues for booking status, urgency, and table availability
The final design enables admins to configure booking rules, manage live reservations, assign or release tables, and monitor floor occupancy — all from a unified system.
Low-fidelity designs
Design System
Operational Design Decisions
Research & Discovery
The foundation for the design came from detailed system requirements and operational flows defined in the SRS, which highlighted how restaurants manage reservations in real-world scenarios.
- Admins need control over rules, not hardcoded logic
- Booking management is time-sensitive, especially near booking slots
- Floor plans are easier to understand visually than as lists
- Customer context (tags, history, comments) helps staff make better decisions
Key Learnings
- Admin products require domain empathy more than visual flair
- Visualizing physical spaces (floor plans) dramatically improves usability
- Designing for stress scenarios leads to better everyday experiences