While planning a valentines day date night, I found myself exploring a handful of platforms that help users find the best restaurants for their needs. I bounced between Google, OpenTable, and Yelp—each offering unique experiences but all serving the same purpose: helping people make informed decisions.

What caught my attention during this process was Yelp’s fantastic mission statement: Connect people with great local businesses. I thought this was a company that has similar values as my own as I am a huge advocate for supporting small businesses. Being a UX and design manager for many years I had less opportunities to create prototypes and get into the weeds of design. I wanted to take this opportunity to refresh my design and prototyping skills and dive deeper into Yelp’s platform. I set aside a few hours to analyze the site and explore how I could improve user engagement, usability, and ultimately, revenue.

I’m fascinated by how Yelp uses AI to refine search results and promote trustworthy reviews. But like any platform, there’s always room for improvement. I’ve identified several areas where Yelp can enhance its design to make the user experience more intuitive and increase traffic. Here's what I came up with:

Yelp has some great features, but many of them feel exposed all at once, such as the map and filters, creating a dashboard-like experience that can be overwhelming. To attract younger users and influencers, Yelp could take inspiration from social platforms with clean, minimalistic designs that allow the content to shine.

[current Yelp Design]

One area that could use some attention is visual hierarchy. The importance of each element on the page doesn’t stand out enough, making it harder for users to find what they need quickly.

Suggestion: Adjust the location, scale, and color of buttons and features to make the most critical information pop. This will help users complete tasks faster and more efficiently, leading to an overall smoother experience.

Yelp has a lot of search options, but the interface can feel cluttered. The cognitive load for users is high when they have to sift through endless options.

Suggestion: Offer users quick, easy filters based on their search preferences. An advanced filter could be included for those who need more specificity. Reducing UI noise and utilizing progressive disclosure will help minimize confusion. Furthermore, leveraging tiles to display search results above the fold and using a collapsible header could make the experience more streamlined.

As I scrolled through search results, I noticed that some sponsored ads were placed above the fold and were irrelevant to my search. After scrolling further, my actual search results were buried beneath them.

Suggestion: Make a clear distinction between search results and sponsored ads. Repositioning these ads so they blend more naturally with the results—or sprinkling in more relevant ads within the results—could help increase ad engagement while maintaining the integrity of the user experience.

Yelp is all about connecting users to businesses, but there’s an opportunity to deepen that connection even more. Social media plays a huge role in how we discover and interact with brands, and Yelp can leverage this.

Suggestion: Incorporate social media posts directly into search results to create more engagement points for users. This could drive traffic, increase user engagement, and build stronger connections between users and businesses.

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Yelp experience for me was being sent to multiple pages to make a reservation. I wanted a quicker, more streamlined approach.

Yelp already connects people with great local businesses, but there’s an untapped opportunity to expand the platform into new areas—such as experiences.

Suggestion: Add features that allow businesses to offer unique experiences (e.g., barista training at your local cafe). This would not only help businesses grow but also enrich Yelp’s community by offering users new ways to interact with brands.

Yelp’s team is likely already aware of many of these areas of improvement, the purpose of this exercise was not to critique the platform’s current state, but rather to encourage innovation and creative thinking. Design isn’t static, and it’s essential to explore new concepts, challenge the status quo, and leverage data to make informed decisions.

No matter your level of seniority or experience, constructive feedback is invaluable. While positive feedback like “cool” or “good job” is encouraging, it doesn’t help teams refine their work or grow. I encourage everyone, from entry-level designers, non designers to senior leaders, to get comfortable with ambiguity, experiment with new approaches, and be willing to poke holes in designs and solutions.