Hi there!!! I've never had a blog
before, neither am I a great writer. Just created this blog to
participate
in a contest I am excited about! The best online restaurant discovery website/app - Zomato has asked for users to share their feedback (likes, dislikes and
improvements) in a blog. I love the brand Zomato
and happy to be entering in
this contest! So here goes
my first ever blog post :)
I am starting with Zomato.com website and later few things on the mobile app. Let me begin with easy ones – 'Likes'. There are so many of them, I just have to
choose my favorite ones. Here it goes…
1.All in one Search
Zomato offers a Simple, Universal and Robust search
engine. I consider this as one of
the top-notch features that beats the competitors of Zomato. This level of robustness doesn’t exist in any
other restaurant finder sites. I can just go ahead and type a restaurant name, a place, or a dish. And the auto-suggest list that pops-up is so close and relevant. Definitely Search is in the top of my ‘likes’
list. May be sometime in future, when I type the restaurant name and menu, the site can directly take me to the menu page of the restaurant
2. Contextual Suggestions
Zomato
is just making
sure we are most certainly getting what we wanted, with these contextual
suggestions like the ones shown below - 'Who viewed this also viewed', ' Nearby restaurants', 'Restaurants around a particular location' and 'frequent searches leading to the page'. Ain't that a beauty! :)
Also, the Breadcrumb navigation in the top of search results page sure does
help me to reverse my search gradually without pressing on the system back
button.
Directions and Route features in
Map is a life saver for me!
3. Simple and Neat User Interface
No complex user interactions or
jarring colors. Zomato is simply adorable with those
streamlined and easy-to-use interactions with sleek User Interface and subtle color styles.
Google’s primary user interface guideline reads – “Focus on User and everything
else will follow”, I think Zomato
just lives by that principal, anyone
using Zomato
would agree this is one of the best user experiences a restaurant finder
website has to offer.
Besides
all the
above 'Likes',
I just love the Parody Posters that we see in Zomato Facebook page Its absolutely brilliant! Fantastic Visual work, I would surely like to
know who is working on those and convey my Kudos to the team coming up with
those creative ideas!! :)
Suggestive New Features for Zomato.com
Okay! Now, coming to the second part - 'Dislikes'. Frankly, there's nothing to dislike about
this wonderful application. So I am sharing more of suggested new features and
improvements in existing design. Here goes...
1. Voting on a Restaurant for treats with Friends
becomes clumsy. I would surely like to have a feature in Zomato to solve this as illustrated
below. A user can choose a restaurant and ask his/her friends to vote.
This will be notified to the friends to whom invite will be sent as illustrated below. And the
friends can then vote in or choose another restaurant.
2. Food Mood
This is something I would love to have! A quick way to curb the cravings :P
I just choose my craving and go to a nearby best place to enjoy! (illustrated below)
3. Pick of the week
If Zomato picks a new restaurant for me based on my past searches and locality, it will be
easy for me to explore new places that I may be interested in.
4. Save for Offline
For those not having connectivity on the go, it would be a helpful feature if I could save the
address and directions of a restaurant for offline reference.
5. Gamification to include interaction among my friends
If I can play games with my friends in network, like - 'who has covered most restaurants
in a locality' and get scores based on that, it would be kind of a fun feature.
Suggestive Improvements in existing design
1. Suggested
foodies to follow
There's a section in user profile page - 'Suggested Foodies' as shown below. While I would
love to follow some of them, I am not sure which of them are more relevant to me. My
preference could be based on my locality, my work area or my favorite dishes. So instead of
a plain listing if the below list could be categorized and shown as a list that is more relevant
to me would be helpful.
2. There is no option to remove restaurants from my Speeddial list. I may not be visiting or
ordering from the same set of restaurants for a long time. So a remove option from the
speed dial would be helpful. (illustrated below)
3. At present 'Recently
viewed list' is accessible from the profile page, I would rather like to
see it
somewhere near the search to make it easier to access or to compare previously
viewed restaurants (illustrated below).
4. I am too lazy to write big sentences, to help people like me, if there is a quick
and easy
way of rating by providing options as illustrated below, you can get more reviews.
5. At present, quick options like 'I have been there', 'Speeddial' and 'Wishlist' or available
only in the restaurant details page and not shown in the search results itself. Since these
options are all just a simple click that I can mark from the search results page itself, these
options could be placed in the search results itself. (illustrated below)
6. In search results sorting, I couldn't find an option to sort based on distance, an option to
sort from 'nearest to farthest' would be good.
7. I am not sure if this will make any difference to others, it sure does to me - A mention of
'Minimum amount of home delivery' would help me while ordering.
8. I think Zomato would have heard it quite often, hear it again from me - I need to get the
Special Deals, Offers and Discounts from the restaurants that I've marked in Wishlist or in
Speed-dial.
9. Organize/Tag photos - Sometimes the number of photos are too many and I would surely
like to see these photos grouped under different headers/tags like 'Ambiance', 'Food',
'Tables', and 'Front view' etc., to make it easy & quick for me in browsing the photos I am
interested in.
Suggestive Improvements in Zomato Mobile App (Android)
1. I've some restaurants in my Speed dial, now when I click on the restaurant names, the
app takes me to the details page from where I can make the call. Instead of this, if I can just
make the call from SpeedDial list itself, it would be reducing few clicks for me.
2. Consistency of interactions - in the screenshots shown below, in the Filters page
(shown left), my action button is at the bottom which is 'Apply'. When I went to the
'Report Error' page (shown right), I was looking for a similar action button at the
bottom, whereas the action button here is the tick mark at the right top corner. This
inconsistency in the interaction could be changed to moving all the action buttons at
the bottom (or top).
3. When there are no search results returned, the action left for me is to play with the
filters to look for search results. In this page, I have to look for the small filter icon at
the top right corner to do the same (shown below). It would have more easier if this
action button is placed in the center of the page itself below the error message.
(illustrated below)
4. Sometimes call button is shown enabled even outside the open hours of
a restaurant. It would save time for me if Call button is disabled for closed times for
hotels.
5. This could be a bit far fetched, but I guess its a nice-to-have - Collections is a great
idea, I was wondering if I could create my own collections as well. For example, I can
create collections like kid friendly, theme based restaurants & make it available for my
friends in network.(illustrated below)
With that, we come to a close of this post! I've enjoyed writing this feedback list. Would be happy to see at least one of these ideas come alive! :)
Best!
