TrustedOnes Blog

Local vs. stuff, eh …what?

One of the most challenging user-facing things on TrustedOnes was the design of the Find page. To have one place for recommending both, the things with an address (plumber, hairdresser, restaurant, bookstore…) and those without one  (a book, movie, website) was a powerful concept, but implementing in a way that users would understand took time.

Our design candidate #1 included two tabs: “Local” and “Products” …and we soon discovered that people had absolutely no idea why there was a distinction, and why they had to make a choice. On the other hand, trying to explain why only made the page busier and even more confusing. Back to the drawing board…

After many mockups and working prototypes, all trying to make this “amazing” concept intuitive, in March 2009, we went with a “transparent” approach. There was no mention of local and products, no tabs,  just an edit box, where users would type a location, or leave it blank. It seemed much cleaner and quite intuitive, except, …people would start writing a rec, …and often ponder: “where do I put the address” or “why is it asking me for an address?” Either way, confusing users at the most critical moment, as they’re writing a recommendation, was not a good thing. Back to the drawing board…

We’re back to tabs, but this time, the design is a lot cleaner, and according to user feedback – it’s making sense. I don’t think that we’ve reached perfection, but we’ve come a LONG way from our early designs. Take a look at let us know what you think, …or even better, ..ideas?