How people find places to eat in France, USA, and China?
Many of us are often faced with a task to search for a place to eat, for occasions such as meeting up with friends, having a date night, or simply grabbing a quick bite. Interestingly, the local food culture makes a difference in how people approach this task. How we make a decision on where to eat largely depends on availabilities in the area, along with other important factors. Accordingly, the different mental models and deciding factors make a big difference in the designs of local food searching apps.
In many American cities, it is not difficult to find a diverse pool of cuisine options: Mexican, Chinese, Indian, Japanese, etc. Therefore, we usually first pick the type of cuisine that we desire and go from there. This food scene is formed by the diverse cultures that are integrated into American society. One could find more than ten different cuisines just in the food court in a normal shopping mall. Always prepare to find yourself in an exotic restaurant where the menu is only available in the local language. I am still very impressed that many of my American friends could name the food by their original names imported directly from different cultures. Culturally-themed food is also offered in my company cafes. That might be the reason why the barrier for Americans to try exotic cuisines is very low. We can find a similar scene in Hong Kong, a cosmopolitan city with a rich cultural diversity due to historical and economic reasons.
How does this food culture influence their design of food searching apps? Below are selective screens of two apps: Yelp that is popular in the US, and Openrice that is popular in the Hong Kong area.
The decision-making process was different when I was living in France. Friends and I usually judged a place by its menu and offerings of the day. If you have been to France, you might remember having seen those blackboards standing outside restaurants with chalk-written content on them. Sometimes it was a handwritten whole menu (selections of starters, main courses, and dessert). Sometimes it was about the “plat du jour” — the featured dish on that day, with a price next to it. The menus show the taste and the class of the places. Other important factors to consider were the open hour and available reservations. The open hour is important to consider in many cultures, but especially in France. For example, most businesses are closed on Sunday in France because traditionally people go to church before having a big lunch with family at home. Hence the farmers’ markets pop up on Sunday and only a limited number of restaurants are open. Making reservations is also very important. It is known that people in France take their time around the table for enjoying meals and chatting with their companions. Therefore walk-ins to restaurants were not popular or recommended unless you would risk in spending hours on the wait.
Below are two screens of a popular restaurant searching app in France: Lafourchette.
Finally, how people in China decide where to eat? Like in many other aspects, the reputation is a very important factor to get Chinese people to buy in a place. In many cases, businesses earn their reputations by word of mouth. My Chinese friends usually start suggestions with “I heard xxx recommend this place in …”. Chinese people are particular with food and they wouldn’t invest any air in places that no one talks about. With the rise of social media, it is a common scene in China that people would try a place after seeing tempting food pictures posted by their contacts on social media. Nowadays Chinese consumers also weigh heavily on the attractive points of places and the food presentations, because they expect to take impressive pictures of their food journeys to share on social media. Deals and discounts are also giving good reasons for Chinese consumers to try out new places.
Below are two screens of a popular restaurant searching app in China: Dianping.
In spite of the differences, with some careful comparison, we also find a lot of similar deciding factors among these cultures, such as location, popularity, price. Therefore a global, lightweight and traveler version for food exploration is:
By demonstrating aspects of some food searching apps that I am familiar with, I would like to say that the local food culture could make a difference in people’s mental model of approaching a simple task of searching for a place to eat. Before implementing a concept related to food searching services, it’s recommended to leverage UX research to see if it connects to local people mental model, using methods such as ethnography and contextual inquiry.
