Please note that this is a real beta, ie any information you add will be deleted before we publish the final site. Play around on the beta as much as you like, but please keep writing your "real" reviews on the old site--we will be importing all data to the final site from there.
With that caveat, here you go: http://beta.eat.fi (username "eat" and password "better")
it feels a bit crowded though -- maybe the bar on the right should be one of the left-hand submenus or something like that? i liked how the map really was the be-all and the end-all of the site in the old version. maybe it just needs some space between the map and the pop-down elements at the top? i dunno. i'm not a designer, i just know what i like. :)
also, it would be really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, nice (really, really, really) if the links were actually links and not javascript actions. i must confess to not understanding this trend in the slightest to begin with, but specifically, it keeps me from opening a bunch of restaurants in tabs and then going through them.
@fooishbar: "it feels a bit crowded though -- maybe the bar on the right should be one of the left-hand submenus or something like that." Yeah, but I guess that's Google Maps' feature and maybe not modifiable? :/
As one who lives & work just a bit too north for the old map, I laud the Google Maps. The old map was really cute, but this ain't bad looking either.
@spongefile that works, thanks! the site is reaaally neat.
my suggestion: it could be nice if the mouseover info box spawned at a slight distance from the mouse pointer, now it gets in the way a bit when there are several places next to each other.
@sumppi: wow, quick response. thanks! :) i was mainly meaning all the restaurants in the actual map, though: for example, if i want to open in tabs all the plausible-looking restaurants in ruoholahti, i can't do that right now: i need to go through them one-by-one.
overall very nice though, and thanks for being so ridiculously responsive.
@suviko so do I, and it seems to be a growing trend. Will be adding more brunch times to the final version (the old version didn't have brunch as a separate "time")--currently I've only added Engel and Ekberg as examples of places with brunch.
Looks allriht. Almost too beveled/rounded for my tastes tho. Or I was just getting used to the original one. Here's a few other small issues, take them with a grain of salt :)
I seem to have a personal problem with icons in general. In this case, they are cute and very well done & all, but please add colour coding or something so the users don't have to "get" them instantly or learn them by visual form.
The colour coding (or the improved icon itself) could also lend itself to the actual map?
A usability tip: I think the menus would be better if they'd close a few moments after I've taken my mouse somewhere else. Clicking those little red x's is bit of a pain. Feels like S60 :(
I think the visual hierarchy needs a bit work. The logo in the corner feels too tightly positioned, and the main navigation is competing with the city name below.
Would it be a bad idea to slide all configuration options open at once?
The functionality is ace tho. Just a little details :)
@samin The icons are a tough nut to crack--representing "ethnicities" in a non-offensive way is an issue, as is the fact that most food tends to be beige(coffee, beer, cheese, onions, fast food...). And since lot of color-coding is already going on (open/closed/brunch/lunch, and food/experience/price) a new color scheme on top of all that seems hard to pull off without resulting in a painful rainbow effect. If you've got ideas for this though, I'm interested, because the current solution isn't ideal either, just the best we could come up with so far. What do you mean by the color coding lending itself to the map, btw?
@spongefile: I mean that it would be awesome if I could distinguish the restaurant type straight away from the map. For example as an small, monotone symbol within the colored dot/rounded square. All closed restaurants would of course be gray them. As the rest of the site is still quite monochromatic I think this could work.
There's six different categories for the restaurants, shouldn't be impossible to figure out a nice colour scale that compliments the icon itself. After that the main icons could be boxed as well, as an "full-color" versions.
Or the restaurant type would be single color icon, and would be shown in full color just in the tooltip?
If you're a logged-in registered user, you see your favorites and wishlist restaurants(as well as those with unknown opening times) on the map as dots with different icons in them, so that spot is taken at the moment...might try out single color icons though. Also am still mulling over certain other categories--vegetarian, etc. for a kind of secondary criteria, but haven't worked this out entirely yet.
@samin and @suviko : Thanks for noticing the lack of icon titles, I added those in the development version and they'll be on the public beta site soon.
Hmm, can somebody think of a reason why not use chopsticks as asian food icon? And no, not nearly all Asian nations eat with chopsticks, just a few actually, but it would be easy to understand as an icon.
Or that I'd get incessant feedback about "don't you know they don't use chopsticks in India, you boor." :) It is the icon I'm least happy with, though.
also the "overall min.2" is a bit confusing - i think "minutes" when i see "min". maybe just replace it with icons - sort of like in itunes - so that i can just click on the number of stars i want. (i.e no drop down menu)
@spongefile Really like the ease of use and feel of the new site! Drop me a mail at ville@arcticstartup.com when you guys launch. I would be happy to write about eat.fi's facelift in the ArcticStartup blog if you'd like.
oh and one more thing – I keep trying to select the restaurant type straight from the navig icons. Any chance that could actually work? I mean the icons would be on/off and no dropdown at all?
Also, I'd change the "overall min.2" to just stars which you could select on/off. No need for dropdown there either :)
Something like that would work for the rest as well. Money = stack of coins, 1-3-4 for example. Date & time is bit tricky but could made work as well, Now OR then Tripadvisor-stylee calendar popup.
@dw and @samin: Note that rating isn't just rating amount, it also contains preferred rating type--ie food/experience/value, which changes the results in the toplist considerably. Also part of the magic speediness of the map is thanks to the potentially unnecessary-seeming Update Map button in each menu. We had what you describe planned initially, (as well as the option of having all controls in one dropdown) but what's on the site now ended up being the option that provides the fastest response to user input, which I considered to be key.
@dw I definitely need to go over all the texts with a fine-toothed comb before they get translated...
@villevesterinen Will do, and feel free.
@samin Must take a closer look at Nokia Maps...
I agree with @dw & @samin, it would be nice to just click icons on and off.
I expected to see an explanation pop-up/tool tip for the icons like @suviko did.
@keltanen had a really good point about the distance between placemark and the info pop-up, now they get a bit in the way especially when I try to drag the map.
It would also be nice to get a bit more info just from the placemarkers, I like to keep my options open, but still see the differences between places. Color-coding would be nice and maybe a bit thicker border for restaurants who scored 4 or higher? (Well the sidebar kinda does the trick)
Like @samin, I also felt that stars (or the colored bars those are already in use) would be better than "min 2." etc..
@erkka We've had to make compromises to get the map to respond that fast--one of them was to limit the amount of information in the popups. Whether that was the right information to choose is another matter. :)
Looks really interesting. Like to see this worldwide. A category of food/reastaurant that is really important to many is Vegetarian (though I'm a raging carnivore myself)
58 comments so far
congrats! when will you be showing the little guy around?
1 year, 4 months ago by keltanen
Please note that this is a real beta, ie any information you add will be deleted before we publish the final site. Play around on the beta as much as you like, but please keep writing your "real" reviews on the old site--we will be importing all data to the final site from there.
With that caveat, here you go: http://beta.eat.fi (username "eat" and password "better")
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Yay! \o/ Well, where's the link? :)
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
Oh, there it came. :]
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
Oh... WOW. :D
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
Yay! Time for the cigars!
1 year, 4 months ago by arabella
Wow. Looks very very good. Vastly improved functionality.
1 year, 4 months ago by kungfiske
Is there an option to surf food images from the restaurants?
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
faaantastic!
1 year, 4 months ago by keltanen
@suviko That's a really interesting idea. We have to add the user photo adding functions first though (they're on the worklist)
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
is it normal that logging in with existing credentials doesn't work?
1 year, 4 months ago by keltanen
yay!
google maps in particlar is AWESOME. thankyou.
it feels a bit crowded though -- maybe the bar on the right should be one of the left-hand submenus or something like that? i liked how the map really was the be-all and the end-all of the site in the old version. maybe it just needs some space between the map and the pop-down elements at the top? i dunno. i'm not a designer, i just know what i like. :)
also, it would be really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, nice (really, really, really) if the links were actually links and not javascript actions. i must confess to not understanding this trend in the slightest to begin with, but specifically, it keeps me from opening a bunch of restaurants in tabs and then going through them.
1 year, 4 months ago by fooishbar
Very nice work!!
1 year, 4 months ago by akonan
@keltanen I don't think the old passwords work...but clicking forgotten password should get you a new one.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@fooishbar: "it feels a bit crowded though -- maybe the bar on the right should be one of the left-hand submenus or something like that." Yeah, but I guess that's Google Maps' feature and maybe not modifiable? :/
As one who lives & work just a bit too north for the old map, I laud the Google Maps. The old map was really cute, but this ain't bad looking either.
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
@fooishbar Good point, the right side menu links on the front page will be actual links. My bad, will be fixed.
1 year, 4 months ago by sumppi
@fooishbar The "top list" links should work right now.
1 year, 4 months ago by sumppi
@spongefile that works, thanks! the site is reaaally neat.
my suggestion: it could be nice if the mouseover info box spawned at a slight distance from the mouse pointer, now it gets in the way a bit when there are several places next to each other.
1 year, 4 months ago by keltanen
@sumppi: wow, quick response. thanks! :) i was mainly meaning all the restaurants in the actual map, though: for example, if i want to open in tabs all the plausible-looking restaurants in ruoholahti, i can't do that right now: i need to go through them one-by-one.
overall very nice though, and thanks for being so ridiculously responsive.
1 year, 4 months ago by fooishbar
ooh. can i just say that i love the bit where the first sentence is bold? awesomesauce.
1 year, 4 months ago by fooishbar
I love the pictures!!! what is the icon for asian food?
1 year, 4 months ago by frech
@suviko you can do that now, look under date and time up top.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@frech wasabi/saag paneer :P
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
must sharpen my lenses.. :)
1 year, 4 months ago by frech
Congratulations guys, it's fantastic!
1 year, 4 months ago by murphy
@spongefile: Just realized it after I had typed that. Great! (I have an ongoing mission with my friends to find the best breakfast/brunch spot. :)
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
wow, very nice. @suviko 's food pic idea cool, will contribute :)
1 year, 4 months ago by Tuija
@suviko so do I, and it seems to be a growing trend. Will be adding more brunch times to the final version (the old version didn't have brunch as a separate "time")--currently I've only added Engel and Ekberg as examples of places with brunch.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Looks allriht. Almost too beveled/rounded for my tastes tho. Or I was just getting used to the original one. Here's a few other small issues, take them with a grain of salt :)
I seem to have a personal problem with icons in general. In this case, they are cute and very well done & all, but please add colour coding or something so the users don't have to "get" them instantly or learn them by visual form.
The colour coding (or the improved icon itself) could also lend itself to the actual map?
A usability tip: I think the menus would be better if they'd close a few moments after I've taken my mouse somewhere else. Clicking those little red x's is bit of a pain. Feels like S60 :(
I think the visual hierarchy needs a bit work. The logo in the corner feels too tightly positioned, and the main navigation is competing with the city name below.
Would it be a bad idea to slide all configuration options open at once?
The functionality is ace tho. Just a little details :)
1 year, 4 months ago by samin
I first tried to mouse-over the icons to see what they are (the ones I couldn't guess) and then clicked them to open.
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
@samin The icons are a tough nut to crack--representing "ethnicities" in a non-offensive way is an issue, as is the fact that most food tends to be beige(coffee, beer, cheese, onions, fast food...). And since lot of color-coding is already going on (open/closed/brunch/lunch, and food/experience/price) a new color scheme on top of all that seems hard to pull off without resulting in a painful rainbow effect. If you've got ideas for this though, I'm interested, because the current solution isn't ideal either, just the best we could come up with so far. What do you mean by the color coding lending itself to the map, btw?
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@spongefile: I mean that it would be awesome if I could distinguish the restaurant type straight away from the map. For example as an small, monotone symbol within the colored dot/rounded square. All closed restaurants would of course be gray them. As the rest of the site is still quite monochromatic I think this could work.
There's six different categories for the restaurants, shouldn't be impossible to figure out a nice colour scale that compliments the icon itself. After that the main icons could be boxed as well, as an "full-color" versions.
Or the restaurant type would be single color icon, and would be shown in full color just in the tooltip?
1 year, 4 months ago by samin
If you're a logged-in registered user, you see your favorites and wishlist restaurants(as well as those with unknown opening times) on the map as dots with different icons in them, so that spot is taken at the moment...might try out single color icons though. Also am still mulling over certain other categories--vegetarian, etc. for a kind of secondary criteria, but haven't worked this out entirely yet.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@samin and @suviko : Thanks for noticing the lack of icon titles, I added those in the development version and they'll be on the public beta site soon.
1 year, 4 months ago by sumppi
Hmm, can somebody think of a reason why not use chopsticks as asian food icon? And no, not nearly all Asian nations eat with chopsticks, just a few actually, but it would be easy to understand as an icon.
1 year, 4 months ago by Suviko
@suviko I almost added chopsticks, but Asian also covers multiple indian/nepalese restaurants, and I was afraid it would be misleading.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Or that I'd get incessant feedback about "don't you know they don't use chopsticks in India, you boor." :) It is the icon I'm least happy with, though.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
the icons under "restaurant type" could be selectable - click each type on/off rather than for the drop down menu to appear
1 year, 4 months ago by dw
also the "overall min.2" is a bit confusing - i think "minutes" when i see "min". maybe just replace it with icons - sort of like in itunes - so that i can just click on the number of stars i want. (i.e no drop down menu)
1 year, 4 months ago by dw
@spongefile Really like the ease of use and feel of the new site! Drop me a mail at ville@arcticstartup.com when you guys launch. I would be happy to write about eat.fi's facelift in the ArcticStartup blog if you'd like.
1 year, 4 months ago by villevesterinen
Wow. Astounding.
1 year, 4 months ago by tulensrma
@spongefile: you'll play with stereotypes anyway, I wouldn't worry too much on that. Chopsticks might be too much tho :)
As far as the style goes, I actually quite like the Nokia Maps icons. Nice & clear, bit too much bevel tho. http://i217.photobucket.com/albums/cc190/AlohaNZ_photos/GPS.jpg
1 year, 4 months ago by samin
oh and one more thing – I keep trying to select the restaurant type straight from the navig icons. Any chance that could actually work? I mean the icons would be on/off and no dropdown at all?
1 year, 4 months ago by samin
Also, I'd change the "overall min.2" to just stars which you could select on/off. No need for dropdown there either :)
Something like that would work for the rest as well. Money = stack of coins, 1-3-4 for example. Date & time is bit tricky but could made work as well, Now OR then Tripadvisor-stylee calendar popup.
1 year, 4 months ago by samin
@samin stop copying my suggestions :D
1 year, 4 months ago by dw
@dw and @samin: Note that rating isn't just rating amount, it also contains preferred rating type--ie food/experience/value, which changes the results in the toplist considerably. Also part of the magic speediness of the map is thanks to the potentially unnecessary-seeming Update Map button in each menu. We had what you describe planned initially, (as well as the option of having all controls in one dropdown) but what's on the site now ended up being the option that provides the fastest response to user input, which I considered to be key.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@dw I definitely need to go over all the texts with a fine-toothed comb before they get translated... @villevesterinen Will do, and feel free. @samin Must take a closer look at Nokia Maps...
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Nice work!
I agree with @dw & @samin, it would be nice to just click icons on and off.
I expected to see an explanation pop-up/tool tip for the icons like @suviko did.
@keltanen had a really good point about the distance between placemark and the info pop-up, now they get a bit in the way especially when I try to drag the map.
It would also be nice to get a bit more info just from the placemarkers, I like to keep my options open, but still see the differences between places. Color-coding would be nice and maybe a bit thicker border for restaurants who scored 4 or higher? (Well the sidebar kinda does the trick)
Like @samin, I also felt that stars (or the colored bars those are already in use) would be better than "min 2." etc..
1 year, 4 months ago by erkka
@erkka We've had to make compromises to get the map to respond that fast--one of them was to limit the amount of information in the popups. Whether that was the right information to choose is another matter. :)
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Tooltip for icons is on its way.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
Wow, the beta's looking absolutely fantastic! Can't wait to use it...
1 year, 4 months ago by jyri
Wow @Spongefile, this is a great service. When might we have this in Los Angeles???
1 year, 4 months ago by JebBrilliant
@JebBrilliant Got a database of LA restaurants? :)
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@Spongefile It's funny you ask... Can we IM on Skype (Jeb.Brilliant) or GChat (JebBrilliant)?
1 year, 4 months ago by JebBrilliant
@JebBrilliant yep, I'm my last name on GTalk.
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile
@Spongefile I added you but I'm not seeing you just yet. I'm JebBrilliant@gmail.com on GChat if you want to try adding me.
1 year, 4 months ago by JebBrilliant
Looks really interesting. Like to see this worldwide. A category of food/reastaurant that is really important to many is Vegetarian (though I'm a raging carnivore myself)
1 year, 4 months ago by WaveyDavey001
@WaveyDavey001 We're heading there... :)
1 year, 4 months ago by spongefile