What Building a Food Menu Information Site Taught Me About Simple Web Development
When developers think about building a useful website, the first ideas that usually come to mind are complex SaaS applications, APIs, dashboards, or AI-powered tools. But sometimes a relatively simple information website can teach you just as much about web development. I recently spent time working with food-menu data and building pages around products, prices, calories, locations, and other…
Building a simple information website, such as one focused on a Crumbl Cookies menu, can provide valuable lessons in web development despite its seemingly straightforward nature. The site should prioritize the user's questions and needs rather than the data itself. Important queries like menu flavors, prices, calorie counts, ingredients, and store locations should be answered swiftly. Organizing information into logical sections with clear navigation aids in achieving this.
When dealing with changing data, such as a regularly updated menu, special considerations must be taken into account. Developers must think about data structure, content updates, caching, page generation, search engine indexing, mobile usability, and managing outdated information. For instance, a weekly menu page must clearly indicate the period for which the information applies to avoid confusion.
Tables can be an effective way to present data, but they may pose readability issues on mobile devices. Responsive design, which involves adapting layouts for different screen sizes, is essential. A table on a phone might require horizontal scrolling or stacked layouts to maintain usability.
Performance matters even for simple websites. A page filled with images, scripts, advertisements, and tracking tools can become slow. Simple optimizations, such as lazy-loading images, compressing images, using modern image formats, minimizing unnecessary JavaScript, reducing third-party scripts, deferring non-critical resources, and using browser caching, can significantly improve performance.
Search engines act as navigation tools for information websites. Therefore, page structure is crucial. It is better to have focused pages answering specific user questions, such as /menu/, /menu-this-week/, /nutrition/, /prices/, /locations/, /hours/, /flavors/, etc. This approach is applicable to various information-heavy projects, not just food websites.
Maintaining data accuracy is another crucial aspect. Outdated information can lead to a poor user experience. A workflow that distinguishes between current and historical information is necessary, especially when dealing with rotating menus.
Ultimately, the goal of development and information architecture should be to reduce friction for the user. In a project like this, focusing more on structured data could prove beneficial. Instead of treating each page as an independent article, modeling underlying information as entities could allow multiple interfaces to share the same data.
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