Design Critique--Yelp

1. Background

   Yelp is an "online urban guide" and business review site.So Yelp has two main functions for users. First, it is a good App to find out lots of kinds of merchants in an area, including restaurants, bars, shopping malls, etc. Users are able to search for a certain merchant he is interested in or a category of merchants to find out what is best for him. Secondly, Yelp has a review and rate system. The registered users can give their reviews about the merchants, and any user can read others’ reviews and the merchant’s rate. These two main functions are valuable to users who have the need to find a merchant.

2. Design Critique

2.1 Focusing on mobile context

 

Figure 1

Figure 2

  Hinman proposed that design should focus on creating experiences that are uniquely mobile. As a mobile App, it will be used in many different contexts. When a user arrives at a place where he is unfamiliar with, he may has a need to find a good restaurant while he is sitting on a bus. The most important thing for him is to locate himself then find a restaurant. As a mobile App, Yelp has the function to locate the device and search merchants nearby(Figure 1&2). This design can meet the user’s need perfectly. When the user wants to know where he is, the locating function, using the character of mobile device, helps the user to know his location. Then the searching nearby function works to give the user all the choices he may be interested in.

2.2 Good Feedback  

Figure 4

Figure 3

Yelp provides good feedback for the users after operation. When the searching results are shown in list, it displays lots of information to users, including merchant’s name and photo, distance, rating, number of reviews, address, price, characters, etc. All of these information are the most important information for users to judge when they have the need to search for some merchants. With these information, users can continue his searching operation without any puzzle. Except for the simple searching operation, it provides a filter function for users to refine the results. During the filter operation, users could make some selections such as choosing a low price, sorting result by rating(Figure 4). After a filtering searching, the user can get the results meet their need. Besides, the filtering condition will be shown on the top of the result, with these feedbacks, the user can understand the searching result clearly.

2.3 Excellent Visibility

Figure 5

    Yelp has good visibility for users. User is able to find out some frequently used buttons(Figure 5), for instance add review, easily at the top of the screen. It is easy for users to find some buttons and understand the meaning of the button.