We are in the middle of an unknown city and hunger begins to tighten. We do not know exactly our location and, although we can see some restaurants with our eyes, we do not know if any of them will be a good choice. We access a smartphone application market, we download an application to help us in our dilemma and we choose the restaurant serenely.
Do not misunderstand me, but we are in the XXI century and there is no application that can run the described flow with the speed and the expected result. Well, there wasn't, now we have Zomato.
First things first: Why an application to find restaurants?
Because I need one. In my job I currently need to move regularly for new cities and stay there for a certain period of time. Also, due my job, during this period of time I have to change places very often within the city itself.
In constant motion and always with little time available, it is a basic necessity for me to have a tool that quickly show me places around that allow me to take my meals daily. When I quote around me, I do not mean just geographically but the places near me that offer a fair quality/price.
On the other hand, when I have time I like to sit, analyze, read some reviews and note that some restaurants may be a good choice in the future for other occasions than the rush of day-to-day.
So on one hand I want a restaurant near me that I will probably like and, on the other hand, I want to choose some of them calmly, by reading reviews and seeing some pictures.
Why usually almost all applications to find restaurants don’t work
First of all let's understand what I mean with don't work. With that I mean that all of them try to give us an approximation of the result we want, but in reality, none of those are exactly what we expected to be. Here some of the common problems I found on all of them
- They are very hard to use;
- If they have problems detecting the GPS they are total disaster;
- All the information is outdated, it has happened to me countless times;
- A completely wrong information about the establishment location;
- Money first, user after, where the big concern of the application is to make money by making some "tricks" to the user, leading him to click on advertising;
Sorry about my english, but I will do the best I can to explain myself.
What I love in Zomato Application
Is light
The application is quite light compared to other applications of the same gender. The Android version has about 14MB and can be installed even on phones with short memory or with little free space. After the first login, the application only had 1,58MB stored in cache memory.
Is fast with using 3g access (and, of course, Wifi)
The application is quite fast. To understand the speed, using an android smartphone with 3G Internet, from the login screen till entering the application and find a restaurant nearby, only 8 seconds will pass. The skeleton and the information of the main areas, the nearby, the feed and profile tabs, are loaded instantly when we navigate through them. The information contained in the details of each restaurant is loaded in less than 2 seconds, and the thumbnails are loaded after the information, starting with the Menu area.
Navigation and Usability
The navigation is very intuitive. Finding the information is natural and intuitive for a new user since all of the information is very well structured and categorized, which makes the whole process quite simple.
Navigation through the different tabs can be done using swipe left and right or by clicking on the tabs titles. When I use the smartphone with just one and the swipe option allows me to easily navigate through the main topics. When I use the smartphone with both hands, pressing the titles gives me better confort. This two ways of doing it shows that everything has been thought up to the maximum detail.
All information is structured in a way that is easy to access the main objective of the application: information of restaurants.
The home screen displays collections to help the user choosing. This option is very good for me when I am looking for help when planning an event.
If I want to search for a restaurant, I can do it using the search field. In the search, I can enter either the name of a restaurant or location or type of cuisine, which makes the search a powerful and versatile tool. When I start to write in the search field, the search starts to give me some possible results and that is very very helpful, it is like magic.
On the other hand, if I am in a hurry or I want to know what is around me, I simply swipe left and enter the Nearby option. The distance, the rating and the type of restaurant is the information that quickly help me to decide the best restaurant without go into details. Sometimes I use the filter in order to refine my search. The existing filter options are numerous and they are very effective.
Reliability and accuracy
This is the most important part of the application and what I like the most: the reliability and accuracy that the application gives me with all the necessary elements so I can decide and choose the best restaurant. I am not saying this just for all the information that I can see about a restaurant, but also because I can look at other reviews from other users. Crossing all these data, I am pretty sure that I will pick a restaurant that I will like.
What I think they can improve
Pin Collections
A feature that would allow me to pin the collections I like the most like so they can always stay at the beginning of the list and let me access them more quickly.
Been there or already reviewed
When I see the restaurants nearby list, I wonder if I've been there before. Maybe something that indicates me that I already have been there and if I made a review.
The most accurated review
How about using a ranking system of reviews, where the review that best suits the restaurant is the first or the Hot Review (perhaps the number of likes?).
Fooder of the month
Like the "employee of the month", maybe you could do the fooder of the month, that is the fooder that made more reviews that month in that specific city.
Zomato partnership Vouchers or with discount this week
How about a collection where discounts vouchers could be applied? If exists a voucher for a specific restaurant, the voucher icon could appear in the results list of restaurants.
Celiac
How about adding a gluten-free filter so that people who are intolerant to gluten are able to find a restaurant quickly?
Arrange restaurant photos
When I return to the same restaurant and I want to add photos, I can do it and assign it to a restaurant. It becomes very difficult to see all my photos from a specific restaurant. How about when I open the review I did of a restaurant, I can scroll horizontally to see all the photos I took that particular restaurant?
When I return to the same restaurant and I want to add photos, I can do it and assign it to a restaurant. It becomes very difficult to see all my photos from a specific restaurant. How about when I open the review I did of a restaurant, I can scroll horizontally to see all the photos I took that particular restaurant?
Routes
Why not adding a collection that allows us to make a route? I'm reminding myself that once a year, there is in Lisbon the "route of tapas", where several restaurants are part of a circuit of tapas.
Suggest a Restaurant
When the Add Restaurant screen opens, the user can't find the submit button, only after he fills the first three input text fields.
When the Add Restaurant screen opens, the user can't find the submit button, only after he fills the first three input text fields.
How about adding a disabled submit button (you do that in the forgot password screen).
Conclusion
If you are seeking for an application that works when you want to find a restaurant, do not waste time installing other, install the Zomato. I hope my suggestions can help you improving something in your application.
Keep doing a good job! Thank you very much!
