4 ms·

Yelp is kind of stuck like Twitter. Product is not shaping up well. I am not sure how they plan to grow without improving their product. Their mobile app still

Yelp is kind of stuck like Twitter. Product is not shaping up well. I am not sure how they plan to grow without improving their product. Their mobile app still kinda sucks

thrownaway2424 11y ago
They're not helping themselves by having a mobile website that's intentionally crippled in order to force users to the app. They need a top-shelf mobile web experience.
- daveguy 11y ago
  This. If you push me to an app by having a non-functional mobile web site I will just stop using your product.
- DrScump 11y ago
  Just use a browser that sets a desktop user agent like Opera or Dolphin.
  - ec109685 11y ago
    Responsive design can trump that still.
    - DrScump 11y ago
      I'm giving a workaround, not defending crap engineering.
sync 11y ago
I don't understand, why hasn't the product changed at all?? There seem to be some obvious wins, e.g. personalization... but no movement at all.
badusername 11y ago
Their mobile app is one of the most poorly designed and poorly executed major tech products out there. For a company that hires probably a thousand engineers, there has been very little improvements on the web and mobile properties in over 4 years. For a product that's innately social, local and realtime, it has missed most of the enabled affordances of years past. I'm surprised that there isn't much competition. I was traveling recently, and found Zomato's app to be much superior.
- spike021 11y ago
  I really can't believe how bad it is (on iOS at least). Two rather signifiant UX issues on my end are: 1. bad image resolution (do they resize pictures to be smaller?); this is also worse from yelp.com 2. Why is the regular swipe from edge of screen to go to the previous screen overridden to move from review to review? (same issue with GMail app though too)
  - tomjakubowski 11y ago
    > Why is the regular swipe from edge of screen to go to the previous screen overridden to move from review to review? (same issue with GMail app though too) I completely share your frustration here. I actually met a Yelp iOS engineer once and asked them about this. They said the idea is that it's supposed to feel like the way you navigate photos in albums on iOS; their expectation (whoever designs Yelp's iOS UX) is that users want to read many reviews and don't skim the review previews first to find the ones they like. I showed them how I prefer to browse reviews: skim the previews, find a promising looking one [Yelp review signal/noise is terrible], "drill into" it, back out, continue until I've read enough reviews to make a judgment. They said they understood my POV, but stood by the assertion that most users don't use the app this way. Maybe they have metrics to justify that.
    - daveguy 11y ago
      Or maybe most users don't use the app that way because of their interface? It makes using the app in a preferred (or preferable) way too cumbersome?
surfmike 11y ago
I use the mobile app all the time, and it seems good enough -- why do you think it sucks? What could be better about it?

Yelp is kind of stuck like Twitter. Product is not shaping up well. I am not sure how they plan to grow without improving their product. Their mobile app still kinda sucks

thrownaway2424 11y ago

They're not helping themselves by having a mobile website that's intentionally crippled in order to force users to the app. They need a top-shelf mobile web experience.

daveguy 11y ago
This. If you push me to an app by having a non-functional mobile web site I will just stop using your product.
DrScump 11y ago
Just use a browser that sets a desktop user agent like Opera or Dolphin.
- ec109685 11y ago
  Responsive design can trump that still.
  - DrScump 11y ago
    I'm giving a workaround, not defending crap engineering.

sync 11y ago

I don't understand, why hasn't the product changed at all?? There seem to be some obvious wins, e.g. personalization... but no movement at all.

badusername 11y ago

Their mobile app is one of the most poorly designed and poorly executed major tech products out there. For a company that hires probably a thousand engineers, there has been very little improvements on the web and mobile properties in over 4 years. For a product that's innately social, local and realtime, it has missed most of the enabled affordances of years past. I'm surprised that there isn't much competition. I was traveling recently, and found Zomato's app to be much superior.

spike021 11y ago
I really can't believe how bad it is (on iOS at least). Two rather signifiant UX issues on my end are: 1. bad image resolution (do they resize pictures to be smaller?); this is also worse from yelp.com 2. Why is the regular swipe from edge of screen to go to the previous screen overridden to move from review to review? (same issue with GMail app though too)
- tomjakubowski 11y ago
  > Why is the regular swipe from edge of screen to go to the previous screen overridden to move from review to review? (same issue with GMail app though too) I completely share your frustration here. I actually met a Yelp iOS engineer once and asked them about this. They said the idea is that it's supposed to feel like the way you navigate photos in albums on iOS; their expectation (whoever designs Yelp's iOS UX) is that users want to read many reviews and don't skim the review previews first to find the ones they like. I showed them how I prefer to browse reviews: skim the previews, find a promising looking one [Yelp review signal/noise is terrible], "drill into" it, back out, continue until I've read enough reviews to make a judgment. They said they understood my POV, but stood by the assertion that most users don't use the app this way. Maybe they have metrics to justify that.
  - daveguy 11y ago
    Or maybe most users don't use the app that way because of their interface? It makes using the app in a preferred (or preferable) way too cumbersome?

surfmike 11y ago

I use the mobile app all the time, and it seems good enough -- why do you think it sucks? What could be better about it?