Design a restaurant reservation product for Yelp.
Question Explain
This question is a task in Product Design where you have to design a system or a feature within Yelp. In this case, it's a restaurant reservation feature. Yelp is a renowned business directory service and crowd-sourced review forum. The interviewer wants you to focus on a specific feature, i.e., a restaurant reservation product. To answer this question, you should try to understand the goals of Yelp, who the users of Yelp are, and what they want.
When you break it down further, the question is asking you to create a design for a system that:
- Allows Yelp users to reserve a table at a restaurant.
- Works seamlessly within the Yelp platform.
- Is user-friendly and efficient.
The key points to focus on while answering this question are:
- Understand the User: Who will be using this new feature? What are their needs?
- Define the Function: What tasks should this feature accomplish?
- Design the Interface: How should this feature look like? How should users interact with it?
- Test and Evaluate: How can the effectiveness of this feature be measured?
Answer Example 1
A Yelp restaurant reservation feature would cater to users who are looking for dining options and would like to reserve a table quickly and efficiently. The functions of this feature should include: searching for restaurants, checking availability, reserving a table, providing reservation details, and sending reminders or notifications.
The design could be an additional button or a link titled 'Reserve a Table' on Yelp's existing restaurant listings. This button would take users to a reservation page where they can select the time, date, and number of people. The system should be able to confirm if the reservation is available or not. If not, it could suggest alternative timings or nearby restaurants with similar cuisine.
After successful reservation, users should receive a confirmation including: reservation number, time, date, and restaurant details. Reminders or notifications can be sent to users through email or push notifications.
To evaluate the success and efficiency of this feature, we can track user engagement, the number of completed reservations, and collect user feedback for improvements.
Answer Example 2
Understanding Yelp's mission to connect people with great local businesses, a restaurant reservation product would provide users a seamless journey from discovery to dining.
The feature should be user-friendly and intuitive. There should be a clear call to action, like 'Book Now' on every restaurant page where booking is possible. Clicking on this button would allow users to choose the date, time, and number of guests for their reservation.
Error messaging should be clear if the selected slot is not available, and alternatives should be proposed. If the restaurant is heavily booked, the product should suggest other restaurants with similar cuisine, location, or user reviews.
Upon making the reservation, the user should receive a confirmation via email or a push notification on their Yelp app. The feature should also allow users to cancel or change the reservation within a reasonable time before dining.
We can measure the success of the feature by looking at the number of reservations made, click-through rate on the 'Book Now' button, the number of cancellations, and user ratings and reviews for this feature.