Introduction
Yelp.com is a website that helps people find local businesses, e.g. restaurants, pubs, hair stylists, in major cities all over the world. It has an average of approximately 135 million monthly unique visitors and has over 71 million local reviews (Yelp.com, 2015). Users can input what they want to find and where they are to filter the destinations. The search returns a number of corresponding places recommended with scores in a list. When users choose one, they can click to get detailed information. It will show the address in google maps, a contact number, open times and prices. What’s important, users can read the recommended reviews sorting by date and ratings and make comments on the reviews or talk with other Yelpers. Besides, users can write a review, add a photo after they come there.
Fig.1 Homepage of Yelp
Analysis
Log-in system
Users need to register and verify the account by email if they want to make a comment. They can create a new account linking to their Facebook account to log in. After having an account, users can edit their own profile such as location. Besides, there are summaries of themselves’ reviews, friends, bookmarks and so on. Users can invite their friends or send a message to the reviewers as well.
Navigation
Users can find what they want by search bar or side bar. The search results depend on an algorithm that considers the rating, number of reviews, etc. The homepage also display some recent activities.
Recommended reviews system
When users choose one place, for example, Gordon Ramsay seen in Fig.2, they can see the detailed information and collection of photos uploaded by users, as well as get directions from Google maps. There is a score that calculated by all users. When clicking it, rating details, as fig.3 shown, states how many people rated the restuarant. Below that, users can see the specific reviews. Users can express their opinions on their experience and they can vote. Instead of displaying all the reviews, Yelp only shows the reliable and helpful reviews. It uses automated software to go through all the reviews that have been submitted to Yelp to select the most useful and reliable ones to help users find the business that’s right for them.
Fig. 2 One example
Fig.3 Rating details
Mobile APP
Users can access Yelp via iPhone, Android, and more.
Accessibility and usability
We have tested the website’s Accessibility and usability by SortSite. The result in fig.4 shows that there are no issues in violation of WCAG2 and Usability.gov Guidelines. Additionally, it is compatible among majority of web browsers.
Fig.4 Test result of SortSite
Related to Be Seated?
Yelp provides a good template that our site can imitate. It has a number of features such as contact details, opening times, review sections, photo sharing, etc that are all closely tied to our plans. Crucially however it is not excellent at reviewing entertainment venues. Like other crowd review sites it fails to provide a good platform for the specifics of an entertainment facility. While it might be well suited to review general things such as food prices, food quality, general condition of the building, it is not great at discussing specific seats which is core the venue experience. Therefore while sites that are similar to Be Seated exist they cannot fulfil the same sort of specific function.
