I don't really like to cook so I usually go out to eat. Since I live in San Francisco I'm surrounded by restaurants, but for some reason I can never decide on a place to eat. I have a handful of go-to spots, but if hunger strikes and I’m not in the mood for any of my favorites, it can be frustrating to figure out where to go. "Why don't you use Yelp?" you might say. I do, but Yelp only really helps if I’m researching ahead of time. When I just want something quick, nearby, and reliably good, scrolling through endless reviews and options feels overwhelming and unhelpful. And I realized I wasn’t the only one — after asking around, I found this is a pretty common problem, which led me to explore a solution. A friend of mine and fellow designer felt the same way and was excited to team up, so we set out to build it together.
When we set out to design this project we had two things in mind: Keep it simple, and make it fun. Since the service itself is very simple and has been done before we needed to make our design stand out in a big way. The experience of the app rides on the simple and beautiful design, sleek animations that captivate the user, and a cozy and personal narrative experience.
The problem behind this issue is simple: oversaturation. When you look at Yelp to find restaurants you're given two views to look at – a map and a list – and both show you a lot of restaurants. The map view shows 20 and the list view shows 23 before giving you the option to load more. It's a lot to look through and adds a lot of time to domething that doesn't have to be a big decision. We believe that by eliminating all of the clutter and simply showing you one place at a time it'll make decision-making much easier. Basically, we'll just tell you where to go.
Plus, this is just more fun!
When we originally toyed with the idea of Eat Roulette, it was in the form of a skeumorphic interface with a Price is Right-style wheel that users would literally spin to discover where they would be going. We initially thought this would be a fun interaction for a simple tool, but as we started to validate the concept with other people, we quickly realized that we had stumbled on a funny, but real, problem, and that many people would be interested in a more useful interface for simplifying their decision making.
The beauty of the original wheel was it's speed and irreverance. We wanted to make sure to bring these concepts over to the final UI by creating as few decision making points as possible for people.
The beauty of the original wheel was it's speed and irreverance. We wanted to make sure to bring these concepts over to the final UI by creating as few decision making points as possible for people.
Eat Roulette has an extremely simple interface and a very narrow focus by design. It has one purpose and one purpose only - to help you quickly choose a place to eat or drink and go there.
Eat Roulette will automatically center the map over a user's current location, based feedback we've received that people generally prefer to go somewhere nearby when rolling the dice on their destiny.
Users can move the map by dragging, and can pinch and zoom to adjust their search area to any size or location.
There is also a button to easily re-center the map to a user's current location, which appears automatically if a user moves the map far enough away from their original location.
Hit the search button, and each possible destination will light up with a dot. After pinging each spot, our magic eight balls of infinite possibility finally agree on a randomly chosen location.
If no destinations are found within your search area, Eat Roulette will automatically zoom out one increment at a time and re-search the larger area to find you the closest possible results to your desired region.
Eat Roulette searches for locations rated above 2 stars that are currently open.
The location details are displayed, along with the route, and one more button press switches you into a custom over the shoulder navigation mode.
The directions provided will automatically switch between walking and driving directions depending on the distance between your current location and the selected venue.
The estimated walking time to your location, or driving time if over 2 miles away, is displayed alongside your estimated arrival time. The contact information and website are also provided to keep you occupied while en route.
Once you arrive at a venue, the journey is completed, and Eat Roulette resets to its default state.
Eat Roulette provides the ability to search for restaurants, bars, and cafes by providing a dead-simple filtering system.
The filter selection is intentionally kept minimal to remove the burden of choice from users, per the design principles of the app. Frankly, even including a filter is pushing it, but our user testing has shown that bar hopping is a super fun way to enjoy Eat Roulette.
These filters let you roll the a different set of dice depending on the mood you are in, or the types of things you want to explore. Restaurants are the default filter, but Eat Roulette will remember your previous selection between sessions.