Restaurant Review Website Evaluations

www.yelp.com

My first impression of Yelp was that the design and layout seemed very colorful and professional, but not overdone. I then noticed the search bar in the very middle of the screen. If I were coming to this website looking for something in particular, this would be the best and easiest way to do so.

I then took a look at a few entries. At the top of each entry is some basic information about the restaurant, such as the address, hours, and phone number. Below is the rating (out of five stars), then reviews. The first thing that I noticed was that most of the restaurants seemed to be rated four to five stars. Compared to how difficult it seemed to be for Ruth Reichl to give a restaurant five stars, this seemed to go against the website's credibility and undermine the value of the rating. The reviews are well written, but are still provided by users. Since these users have little or no credibility, this also goes against the credibility of the website.

www.tastingmenu.com/

I next looked at tastingmenu. Unlike Yelp, this website is a blog with each post written by one of the two authors: Hillel and Dana. These posts seemed to be more detailed and are written well. The fact that there are only two authors seems to give some credibility to the website, though I think that they could provide more information about the authors so we know exactly what credentials they have.

I was very impressed with the site's design, which is obviously professional and not just an amateur project. The site is not cluttered at all, whith links along the top leading to the various sections of the page, some background information on the left, and only two small, non-distracting ads on the right. There is also a search box on the left to easily locate older posts, which is the perfect location for a blog.

www.atlantafoodies.blogspot.com/

The first thing I noticed about the Atlanta Foodies website was the layout; everything is very "square," which gives the site an amateur look. I was then drawn to the large MARTA logo in the middle of the page. This would be appropriate for the MARTA website, but it is completely irrelevant for a food website.

As I began reading through the entries (this is also a blog), I noticed that there were both announcements and reviews mixed together. I found this rather odd and distracting. There is also a flashing button or something on the left, towards the bottom of the screen when the page first loads which is somewhat distracting. The posts themselves are written well, it just seems like the website was thrown together with little thought or effort.