Redesigning The Infatuation’s Core Experiences

The Infatuation is a restaurant discovery platform that helps people find their new favorite spots in town. Known for its witty and irreverent editorial voice, the brand has built a loyal fanbase of readers who trust its recommendations. But while the content had personality, the experience of using the app and site felt dated, especially as people increasingly turned to AI summaries and social media for restaurant discovery.As Senior Product Designer, I led a year-long redesign of The Infatuation’s core experience across desktop, mobile web, and app. The goal was to modernize how people read reviews and guides, making the experience more media-rich, flexible, and scalable, while strengthening SEO performance in an evolving search landscape.

This case study represents the broader body of work that went into redesigning the reader experience at The Infatuation. The project unfolded across many smaller, overlapping initiatives that evolved over the course of a year. For clarity, I’ve consolidated that work into a single narrative — but in reality, it involved ongoing iteration, alignment, and changes in direction between teams during a period of shifting design leadership.

Discover > Define > Develop > Deliver

Discover

While at The Infatuation, I led a series of research initiatives aimed at understanding how readers experienced the platform and identifying opportunities for improvement. These included a UX audit, internal alignment sessions with editorial and product teams, and in-person user research at EEEEEATSCON, The Infatuation’s annual food festival.

1. Research - UX Audit
In my first weeks, I conducted a comprehensive audit of the review and guide experiences across desktop, mobile web, and app. I catalogued UI components, layouts, and interaction patterns to understand how readers engaged with content on each platform.

2. Research - Internal Card Sorting with Editorial Team
To balance editorial priorities with user needs and product goals, I ran an internal card-sorting exercise with twelve editors, writers, and product partners. Each participant was shown all UI elements from a review — metadata like neighborhood, price, cuisine, and tags, as well as interactive elements like save, share, and map. They ranked each item by importance to the reader, and I synthesized the results into a frequency-weighted hierarchy.

Beyond the design outcome, the exercise strengthened cross-functional relationships. Editorial, product, and engineering developed a shared understanding of how to balance storytelling with usability, making future decisions faster and more aligned.

3. Research - 20+ Interviews at EEEEEATSCON
At EEEEEATSCON, The Infatuation’s annual food festival, I interviewed more than twenty attendees about how they discover restaurants, which apps they use, and how The Infatuation fits into that ecosystem. Each conversation was recorded, transcribed, and synthesized through affinity mapping into key insights, which I presented in a deck to design, product, editorial, engineering, and leadership.

Define

The research made it clear that people loved what The Infatuation said, but not how it said it. Readers trusted the brand’s voice but struggled with a product experience that felt static, cluttered, and dated. The opportunity wasn’t just to redesign pages, it was to bring stories to life through design. With the research in hand, I reframed the challenge into a few key questions:

• How might we redesign reviews and guides to feel native on mobile web?

• How might we make it easier for readers to find the information they want?

• How might we introduce new media like videos and carousels?

• How might we create a scalable layout that adapts to different content types?

• How might we structure information consistently across desktop, mobile web, and app while giving editorial teams flexibility to tell different kinds of stories?

Develop

The redesign of guides and reviews focused around creating modular content that can scale. The reason was that modular content can communicate more effectively from editorial staff to the reader. It can accommodate more content, more photos, new videos, and scale for device. Across both Reviews and Guides, the new design introduced scalable layouts, richer media, and flexible structures that made every piece feel intentional, modern, and distinctly The Infatuation.

Reviews Redesign

Guides Redesign

Guides are one of The Infatuation’s most popular formats, but every guide looked the same whether it was The Top 25or Best Coffee Shops to Read At. I created a modular guide system that adapts to the scale and intent of the content, giving editors more control over how stories are told.

The new design introduces small, medium, and large modules that let editors adjust visual weight based on importance. Flagship spots can now take over the page with full-width imagery, while smaller mentions remain compact and scannable. This modularity keeps long guides visually varied and easy to browse, even when they include dozens of recommendations.

I also restructured how metadata appears. Key details like neighborhood, cuisine, and “Perfect Fors” now live directly within each restaurant card improving scanability and helping readers find what they need faster.

To make larger guides more usable, I introduced sorting and filtering tools that let readers narrow results by location, cuisine, or vibe. The interaction is simple, responsive, and feels native to each platform especially mobile web, where most discovery happens.

The result is a system that balances editorial storytelling with usability, flexible enough for evolving content, but consistent enough to feel cohesive across all platforms.

Sticky Headers

One of the most impactful UX improvements was the introduction of sticky headers across reviews and guides. As users scroll, the restaurant name, rating, save, and share options stay visible at the top of the screen. This keeps critical information within reach at all times and prevents users from losing context, especially during long reads. It’s simple but highly effective, creating a smoother, more focused experience across desktop, app, and mobile web.

Rich Media

Previously, every review and guide was limited to a single static image. I designed a new media framework that supports carousels, videos, GIFs, and galleries throughout the page. Users can scroll through images, tap into a lightbox for a closer look, or view inline videos that bring the dining experience to life. The goal was to make media feel integrated with storytelling rather than added on top of it.

Sort and Filter

Long-form guides often included dozens of restaurants, making it difficult for readers to find what they wanted. I introduced sorting and filtering tools that let users narrow results by neighborhood, cuisine, and “Perfect For” tags. The filters are intentionally lightweight and responsive, appearing inline rather than as a separate overlay. This makes the experience feel fluid and native to each platform while helping readers find the right spot faster.

Together, these updates redefined how readers interact with The Infatuation. What started as a static, one-size-fits-all layout evolved into a flexible system built for discovery, exploration, and trust. After rounds of iteration, testing, and feedback, we were ready to launch the new experience across desktop, app, and mobile web.

Deliver

I worked closely with my PM, engineering manager, and a small team of engineers and designers to bring the redesign to life. We had a firm deadline to launch before the end of the year to support Year-in-Reviews, one of The Infatuation’s biggest traffic events.

We launched across desktop, mobile web, and app at the same time to ensure parity and a consistent experience. I collaborated with engineers to refine interactions and ensure design fidelity, while the broader design team, and held regular reviews with leadership to align on direction.

To get the editorial team aligned on the new updates, I drafted a 24 page style guide. This helped ensure the editorial team knew how to best use the new modular layouts available to them.

Before launch, I QA'd the experience to check visual and behavioral consistency and ran small user samples to spot issues early. As signals came in, we adjusted layouts, spacing, and metadata to improve readability and flow. Then we followed with A/B tests to compare performance and engagement against the old experience. The data showed stronger interaction rates and better readability, confirming that the new design improved both user experience and SEO.

The Year-in-Review launched to overwhelmingly positive feedback from both readers and the internal team. It became the most engaging experience The Infatuation had ever produced, incorporating the richest mix of media, storytelling, and interaction in the company’s history.

Learnings

Redesigning The Infatuation’s core experiences was far from simple. I navigated personal challenges, changes in leadership, and multiple layoffs along the way. The product that shipped was the result of persistence and collaboration, and I’m proud of what the team accomplished.

In hindsight, a more iterative approach and closer cross-functional alignment could have helped us ship even more. While many of our goals centered around improving SEO, the rise of AI summaries ultimately reshaped how people discover content. Looking back, I wish I had spent more time designing for the human reader rather than for the algorithm.

Still, the work was an invaluable reminder that even under shifting priorities, thoughtful design can create lasting impact — for both teams and the people using what we build.