Yelp is a leading platform for restaurant reviews and foodie themed social networking. The site features a user-sourced database of restaurants and reviews. In addition to food themed content it also contains reviews and features related to businesses in other fields.
Some of the basic features of the Yelp app currently include: Requesting a quote, Making a reservation, Adding a new location page, Writing reviews, A 5 star rating system, Locations, Hours, Maps, and more.
Currently there are limited methods for users to write and find reviews that reference a specific menu item at a restaurant. Users can attempt to find the menu item they are interested in on a yelp provided list of “popular dishes” or an incomplete user sourced “Full Menu” page. Their other option is to search the name of the dish within user reviews of a location.
In making this process easier for users, they will better be able to research what they desire to order by using the Yelp app.
How can we allow users to better view and give feedback on individual menu items using the Yelp app.
First I determined the questions that I wanted to answer via my research:
1. Understanding users interests in regards to assessing what to order at a restaurant.
2. Understanding users current methods in determining what to order.
I then choose to start with a Competitive Analysis of other restaurant review platforms followed by User Interviews.
I conducted a competitive analysis of twelve games websites in order to better understand the currently used methods of conveying gameplay information to potential customers. I focused on comparing and contrasting the features of each website as well as their presentation of the information.
After conducting interviews with five individuals, I was able to determine the following shared pain points and motivations.
Shared Pain Points
Difficulty in assessing price/quality/quantity ratios of a dish before ordering
Shared Motivations
Trying novel foods
Eating healthy foods
Eating dishes that have recieved praise through respected food journalists
After conducting user interviews and creating my competitive analysis, I decided to create POV and HMW statements in order to help define the problems that users were facing.
Excerpt:
1. For frequent users of restaurant review platforms, who struggle to assess the price/quality/quantity of a menu item before purchasing, because currently available platforms do not make that information easy to find, we will create a new UI element that provides easy access to that information. This will help allow users to more easily find information about individual menu items.
How might we allow potential users to easily assess the value level of a menu item to help them decide what they want to order?How might we help potential users accurately indicate the value of a menu item in a review?
Following preliminary research, I was able to create two user personas in order to have templates for my target users.
.png)
.png)
These shared points points inspired me to add some sort of easy to read indication of several basic qualities of a menu item in the form of visual indicators. I call these badges.
After conducting user interviews, I created flows for two common tasks:
.png)
First I created low fidelity wireframes based upon the existing look of the Yelp app and my flows.
I decided to add new icons in order to allow users to select which individual menu item they wanted to review.
These frames also included a basic idea of what the badges and menu item selection interface might look like.
I then created high fidelity wireframes based on my low fidelity wireframes and my mood board.
.png)
After completing my wireframes I conducted usability testing over Zoom with 5 participants.
Participants were tasked with completing two tasks.
Task One: Write a new review of a menu item and give it a badge.
Task Two: Search for a review of a menu item.
What Worked
Users liked the look of the feature
Users felt that it matched the feel of yelp
Users were able to navigate through the tasks with relative ease
What Didn’t Work
Potential concern over intelligibility of badge icons (this could be solved by a infographic popup on clicking badges on a review)
Multiple methods to access the menu confused users
After receiving feedback, I made the following minor change to the design:
The additional Full Menu button was deleted due to confusion of some users.