The “lazy” approach to usability is to just use a web site or application yourself and use usability heuristics. This is what I do, and it’s why I have a huge to-do list of things to fix on the site. Lately to build out the site content, I’ve been going to a lot of restaurants not listed on the site. This means I have a multi-step process after I eat:
- Add a new restaurant.
- Add a location.
- Add a review of the restaurant.
- Rate the restaurant
- Add all the menu items I ate.
- Tag the menu items.
- Write a review of the menu items.
- Rate the menu item.
For everyday users, I don’t expect 1 or 2 and only a few of 3-8, but 1 is a requisite and 2 is nice for maps and just being able to get information quickly. I did want to streamline this process, so I made a combined form that does 1,2 and 3 all in one place. That’s just six steps:
- Add a new restaurant.
- Rate the restaurant
- Add all the menu items I ate.
- Tag the menu items.
- Write a review of the menu items.
- Rate the menu item.
For most users it makes sense, since most restaurants just have one location - or if they are adding a restaurant they are only thinking of a specific location.
I also took the opportunity to do a check on restaurant names. If you attempt to enter Green Mill twice, you’ll be prompted that a restaurant with that name already exists. It’s not a very smart check, but it should serve it’s purpose.