Paola: Were you thinking that either of these cards would be tappable and would lead you somewhere else?

Jon: No, I think tapping would lead you to a page that just contains more information, some pictures, at the bottom they would have a “go” button that would just bring up Google Maps and bring you directions to get there. I do 100% agree with what you all have said, which is to bring the information up to the forefront. When you mentioned that I started imagining a design where it still maintains this kind of blocky design, but with the information in the card and a tiny block with the picture and making that more narrow so options can be seen quickly. Rather than having more information when you select it, one click could just bring you to the map. It reduces the friction here as well.

Paola: Always go back to your original problem statement so you can verify that everything you’re going to release is actually meeting and solving that problem. For example, if you’re considering keeping a search bar, and the original intent is for people new to an area, then what exactly would you be searching for? If you’re new to a place, you’d likely be searching not for the name of a place, but for a type of place—a book store versus a cafe.

Jasmine: I agree, what makes this different from Yelp? Right now you’re getting a lot of the same things.

Geoff: That’s a really good thing to think about: the competition. How is this different? How are the needs of my users different and what can I do to help them that’s going to assess some of those needs? For example, most photos on Yelp are going to be of the food. For this, people don’t care about that— they want to see the work space, they want to see where the outlets are, they want to know how good the wifi is, what times of day are busy, how many seats there are. Think about all the things that you’re going to be considering and then, again, how they play into your information hierarchy.

Jon: Ok! I have a question now, with all these different aspects to consider, how do you recommend selecting which ones are to be at the top of the hierarchy? How many should be displayed in such a short amount of space?

Jasmine: I think Jeff had a good thought around that. You literally go through and try to identify what are the core pieces of information that are important to a user and then list those out and put them in a logical format.

Geoff: Yeah, I think for something like this you can use your gut a little bit, or you can talk to other people. One thing that can really help is to think about not just yourself in a certain scenario but yourself in many different scenarios. If you’re jammed on time and it’s 11:00 PM, what do you need to know? Is this place even open that late? You wouldn’t think about that if it’s noon. Think about different contexts and rank those to consider all the information you’d need and when it’s most important.

Paola: As long as you try to solve the core problem for each of these contexts to try to make conscious decisions about why you’re solving them.

Jasmine: It’s okay if you’re looking through your list of things—like I’m looking at your brainstorm again—and saying: “this doesn’t apply.” Getting rid of options can make your job easier. Maybe food doesn’t even matter in this, maybe you could actually be looking for locations that specifically aren’t restaurants.