Designing Sesame – Building an Equitable Food Delivery Experience for Restaurants & Diners

As Director of Product Design, I led the UX and product strategy for Sesame, a mission-driven food delivery app designed to serve both customers and independent restaurants. Our work translated brand values into a scalable digital experience, from customer ordering flows to restaurant-facing POS tools. Sesame launched in Manhattan in 2021.

Before (Challenge) → After (Solution)

Needed a food delivery experience centered on fairness for restaurants and better engagement for diners. → Designed customer and restaurant tools that reflected Sesame’s mission of equity and sustainability.

Restaurants lacked tools to differentiate themselves on delivery apps. → Introduced “Stories” features for ambiance, food, and music to give listings more personality.

No restaurant-facing POS system existed for managing orders efficiently. → Designed an intuitive POS interface to streamline in-house kitchen operations.

How WE Got There

Conducted stakeholder research with 8 frequent food delivery users and 6 restaurateurs to uncover pain points and motivations.

Tested hypotheses about Sesame’s altruistic value proposition and how it resonated with diners and businesses.

Designed flows and UI for:

Customer ordering journeys with an emphasis on transparency and restaurant equity.
A restaurant-facing POS system to enter and manage kitchen orders manually.
A “Stories-like” slideshow tool, enabling restaurants to showcase ambiance, food, and music for stronger differentiation.

Delivered a scalable system architecture and UI components aligned with Sesame’s evolving brand guidelines, also designed by frog.

We interviewed 8 frequent customers of food delivery apps, and 6 restauranteurs to learn about pain points and motivations. We tested hypotheses around the altruistic nature of Sesame as a value proposition, and whether it resonated with users and business owners.

Selected DeLIVERABLES

Customer Journey Mapping: Visualized user flows during and after ordering.

This diagram served to outline the various screens and components to be designed, as well as the Sprint cadence and dependencies of elements within.

Outlining the Customer Journey during and after the ordering process.

Selected DELIVERABLES

Design System Alignment: Translating brand guidelines into functional UI components for desktop and web customer experience.

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Process work exploring how to incorporate the branding into the functional experience. In efforts to give the restaurants more tools to differentiate themselves, we added a “Stories-like” slideshow tool, so they could show off food, ambiance and music to add personality to the listing.

Restaurant Stories UI: Tools for restaurants to showcase personality and attract loyal diners.

POS Interface Design: Simplifies order entry and kitchen management for restaurant staff.

Building altruism into the flywheel: Developed loyalty program that reflects the positive impact the customer has on the community by using Sesame over other delivery services.

Impact

Result → Outcome

Launched in Manhattan in 2021 → Gained traction and growing market share among diners and restaurants.

Delivered equitable tools for restaurants → Empowered businesses to differentiate and connect with customers.

Built foundations for long-term scalability → Defined UX architecture to support growth beyond initial launch.

Mission-Driven Design Impact

Unlike typical food delivery platforms, Sesame was designed to restore balance between customer convenience and restaurant sustainability. We focused on equitable UX patterns that help independent businesses thrive in a competitive ecosystem.

Key Reflection

“This project reinforced how nuanced tradeoffs are in mission-driven marketplaces. Next time, I’d pilot customer-facing prototypes in the real world to gauge user demand for a new delivery platform with an altruistic mission.”

Design POV

“Delivery apps often prioritize scale over relationships. For Sesame, we focused on creating experiences that felt fair, transparent, and engaging—building trust with both sides of the marketplace.”