Spot.ph LogoIf there’s one thing about city guides a lot of people can be thankful for, it’s that small entities now have a cost(less) effective way to promote their budding businesses. That hole in the wall restaurant you’ve always wanted to go to is no longer an hour away –
it’s just a click away.

I just wanted to give some comments about Summit’s newly released Spot.ph city guide, which sadly, (in my opinion) fails to live up to the high standards the company is very well known for.

Site Design

I read in a landing page optimization handbook that if a user goes to any particular section of a site, but doesn’t immediately know what to do on that page, then there’s something wrong. Aside from the restaurant search at the top portion of the site which works particularly well, I just did not know what to do next.

What I did notice is the placement of a very huge banner in the middle of the page. It is too big in fact, that it takes away all the attention from the already limited content that exists on the site.

Spot ReviewsSecondly, there are numerous posts from different users at the left side of the page. In the posts, you’ll see condensed resto reviews and such. My question is this — if you’re a user and you see all of this, will seeing the person’s avatar make you click on the review? Wouldn’t you rather see a small picture of what the place actually looks like, or a good picture of any specialty they’re serving?

My third comment has a lot to do with the spacing between all the different sections of the page. The lack of uniformity or alignment in between squares and lines gives me an impression of a very messy page. The empty thumbnails don’t help either.

spot-lines.jpg

Tabs, tabs, tabs. When you click on “Reviews”, are we talking about movie reviews or restaurant reviews? I think a lot can be done to make things less confusing.

spot-tabs.jpg

Particularly in the log-in fields, there should be a username label beside the first space, and password before the next. You simply cannot assume that people already know what to put there. Also in the same area, there should be a space between “Not yet a member?” and “Register now”. Though just a minor mistake, it is still worth noting.

Community Aspect

The People Tab

spot-people.jpgSomething that piqued my interest when I first visited the site was the existence of a “people” tab. Upon clicking, you will be brought to a page with thumbnails of the site’s members. If you look to the upper left side of the page, there is a “Search for People” field. My question is this — What exactly are you searching for?

You obviously can’t search for full names because upon registration,  they don’t even ask for them.

Forums vs Comments

Er, if people are asked to talk about a restaurant review using the comment system, what is the forum for? I think they have to be clear on this from the very start.

Final Comments

Does Spot.ph want to be a restaurant guide, a social networking site, or a comprehensive city guide? Rather than trying to be everything at once, they should focus on improving the usability of the site first. Give the visitor a seamless interface that he or she would want to come back to.

What would convince me, a frequent visitor of Click the City, to transfer to Spot.ph? All I have to do is click on the appropriate tabs on the left and I can see all the movie schedules I need. If I’m looking for a particular show band (ugh) that I wanna catch, it’s so easy to look for em’ as well.

What would convince me, an occasional visitor of Munchpunch, to transfer to Spot.ph? They’ve made it clear from the start that they want to be the Zagat Resto Guide of the Philippines (Cool “I’m Hungry” button by the way). They’ve also gone the extra mile and acquired menus from most of the restaurants in their database.

I know there’s a promo where in you can get the chance to win a wad of cash for every review that you write, but does this initiative able to promote post quality as well? I’d like to think that if they address the glaring issues on the site, all the reviews and advertisements are sure to come.

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