Background

Toast is the fastest-growing restaurant management platform in the U.S., and one of my first major projects here was to design, develop, and launch their new app marketplace. This marketplace was envisioned as a way to connect restaurant operators with an expanding ecosystem of third-party applications.

As the Lead Product Designer, I spearheaded product design through stakeholder interviews, product strategy, site mapping, ideation, wireframing, high-fidelity mockups, interactive prototypes, and evaluative research. I collaborated with a cross-functional Integrations and Partnerships Team that included Executives, UX Leadership, Product & Technical Management, Engineering, and a Senior UI/Design Systems Designer.


The Challenge

Toast had an established high-touch integrations service that assisted restaurants in connecting their data with third-party applications. However, with the growth in available integrations, the goal was to empower restaurant operators to discover and integrate applications on their own. The challenge was to transition from a manual, assisted model to a scalable self-service experience that felt both intuitive and aligned with Toast’s brand.

The Work

To achieve this, I led a multi-faceted design effort that focused on:

1. Defining the Vision and Strategy

• Stakeholder Insights: Engaged with Toast leaders to learn the history and vision of the product area.

• Strategic Focus: Identified an opportunity to enhance the brand experience by making the integration portal feel more like an e-commerce platform, while addressing the needs of both small business and enterprise customers.

• MVP Prioritization: Focused initially on delivering a seamless self-service experience for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), with an enterprise solution to follow.

2. Crafting a Seamless User Experience

• Reimagining the Portal: Redesigned the integration interface to better showcase available applications, similar to an online store.

• Separation of Concerns: “Separated the cart from the store” by relocating integration mapping settings to a dedicated page and moving app descriptions to a new details page—each clearly articulating the unique value proposition of the integration.

3. Cross-Functional Collaboration and Iteration

• Collaborative Design: Worked closely with product and engineering partners to align on solutions that met the distinct needs of SMB and enterprise users.

• Design System Enhancements: Collaborated with our Senior UI Designer to test new design system components, develop an in-product marketing banner for Toast Product Connect, and ensure a consistent, app-like treatment for third-party partners.

• Iterative Refinement: Leveraged insights from user testing with several small business customers, such as clarifying that certain unique identifiers in the mapping settings were optional, to refine the overall experience.

Impact

By breaking the project into key milestones, we swiftly completed the SMB design phase and successfully launched the new marketplace within a single business quarter. The iterative process and user feedback helped create a self-service experience that was both intuitive and scalable, setting the stage for future enterprise enhancements and solidifying Toast’s position as a leader in restaurant management technology.