Smart businesses like Yelp are realizing the importance of UX

In China, I always relied on a website called “DianPing” to locate restaurants, bars, boutiques, etc. One of the first things I did when I arrived in New York was to find a similar product in the US, so I downloaded the app Yelp, a huge review forum that makes my daily life easier and more informative.

It helps us connect with great local businesses to build community and offer me a variety of services. According to Yelp statistics, countless people from the user community share their experiences with tens of thousands of businesses on Yelp’s platform every day, helping countless people make smarter spending decisions.

Yelp users have contributed a cumulative total of about 142 million reviews to all different types of businesses, which is just AMAZING!

How can Yelp ensure that users have the same seamless experience when reviewing a restaurant as they do when searching for a hotel room? How do Yelp make its design work for everyone? This was a daunting task for Yelp, but Yelp managed to deliver great content and a great overall experience for every page visitor!

Help users get it done and earn trust every day

In 2004, Yelp’s original business model was to ask users’ friends for their opinions. The design changed dramatically when the business model shifted to searching for and reviewing places.

When searching, I am always given the most accurate information and relevant map navigation. At the same time, Yelp provides high-quality information and reviews, making it a valuable resource for users. The site is optimized for both desktop and mobile devices, providing users with a seamless experience no matter what device they are using. Yelp’s user experience on desktop and mobile devices is highly effective in meeting user needs and achieving business goals. It provides users with a seamless experience regardless of the device they are using. Most importantly, Yelp wants everyone to treat each other and the platform with honesty and respect, so it has developed its own Trust & Safety Report.

Although I don’t use Yelp as a business, I’ve seen countless businesses use it to build their perfect digital online presence. I believe that Yelp’s UX design team knows its users and business owners and understands what we want and need. I also believe that Yelp is therefore a customer-centric website that embraces the needs of its users. This also makes us consumers and business owners respect and trust Yelp as a platform.

Keeping users from having to think

When I first used Yelp, I found it easy to find the information I was looking for. The site is well organized, with clear navigation and search functions. The amount of information and reviews presented to me in a very organized way helped me to make more informed decisions about where to eat, stay and do business.

Sometimes it’s important not to make the experience too complicated; less is more. Clarity is key to optimizing a website to provide a better user experience and perform well in search rankings, and Yelp provides a clear, easy-to-use interface for users to find information and reviews of restaurants, hotels, and other businesses. It also makes good use of a large number of images, including photos and maps, to help users visualize information about places. I believe Yelp not only knows what problems it is helping its users solve but also understands its mission to make users’ lives better because of a good user experience.

Make aesthetically pleasing designs with empathy

Yelp has built an extensive web and mobile style guide called the Cookbook, a digital style guide that helps Yelp present a consistent overall image across the web and helps all design and engineering teams be more efficient. Such a unified language system is particularly important for websites that need to provide a first-class user experience.

First and foremost was the brand logo, the original Yelp logo was inspired by the star symbol that appears above the character’s head during a cartoon quest apparition. It mimics the state of Yelp users when they discover a local shop they love. The design team has gone to great lengths to make the new logo smoother and more geometric. The logo can be downloaded in multiple formats in Cookbook.

An equally important brand element is the star rating scale. yelp has constantly revised its star platform criteria to unify a simple style. The number of star variations has also been reduced from twenty to the current four.

The use of font colors in different locations for other media backgrounds, primary text in all aspects of the UI, secondary text, illustrations, and low-emphasis UI elements are unified.

Brand colors, warning colors, promotional colors, success colors, etc. are established so that web pages can be presented with a more harmonious feel.

Another opportunity to bring consistency to the design is the application icon symbol. Illustrations help users to deepen their understanding of a feature, product, or brand. The concept of written exposition is enhanced by combining it with headlines and body copy.

Yelp’s UX team is always updating its library of resources, giving icons more delight and personality to keep up with the current aesthetic. These updates have given Yelp a more solid base for development over time. These visually appealing designs provide a consistent experience for users using different devices.

Virtuous circle

Yelp does not currently use artificial intelligence or chatbots, but contact with Yelp is featured most prominently on the Yelp for Business page. As more and more users start using Yelp to easily write reviews, post jobs and get links to business owners, more and more business owners are joining Yelp and improving their digital online accounts. Conversions in Yelp can be calculated by tracking the number of conversions from a link on the Yelp website or app to an actual sale or action such as booking a restaurant reservation or a phone reservation. Yelp can achieve greater conversion rates.

All in all

Smart businesses like Yelp are realizing the importance of UX and are striving to succeed in this new digital environment. Yelp’s has the ability to influence cities comes from knowing the people who work, play and live on those streets through. This daunting UX task is accomplished through an iterative process of researching, planning, testing and refining the UX at every touchpoint of the user journey. By bringing together a tight-knit team of product designers, researchers, writers, project managers and illustrators, it creates user experiences that make a lasting impact and meet many of the key criteria for a successful user experience.