We all have experienced when it is difficult to pick a restaurant for a meal with our partner, family, or friends. Sometimes we don’t know what’s nearby. And sometimes we are reluctant to voice what we really want. What if there is an easier way to pick out a restaurant that satisfies everyone’s desire? Introducing Chicken Tinder, a mobile app/site that let you and others pick a restaurant nearby in the style of swiping like in Tinder. Nearby restaurants will show up one by one and you can swipe left if you hate it, swipe right if you like it, and swipe up if you love it. After the entire group finishes their “votes”, the app will recommend the restaurant best matches everyone’s desire.

User story

• As a hungry person about to have a meal with others, I want to let everyone vote their preferences in private so that our party can enjoy a meal in a restaurant best fits everyone’s preference.

Brainstorming

• There should be one host starting a party and letting others join in.
• There should be a minimum of 2 people (including the host) at a party.
• The app should get the host location or let the host pick a location.
• The order of restaurants being displayed should be ranked based on distance and ratings (and other factors).
• Users can vote their preference by swiping left (dislike), right (like), and up (love).
• Values should be added to each restaurant based on the votes received. The top-rated restaurant (or top few) would be recommended to the party.
• Each restaurant card being displayed should contain enough information so users can make a snap judgment, like distance to the target location, rating, pictures, top dishes, price point…
• There should be an upper limit of restaurants to pick from and everyone should pick from the same list.
• There should be some information about how many people have joined in, current top-rated restaurants (or top few).
• There should also be a way to let anyone stop voting if they are okay with the current top-rated restaurant.

Technical needs

• Get restaurant data from a known dataset, like Google Map or Yelp.
• Get location data from the host or let the host pick a location using a map or address.
• Calculate the distance from each restaurant to the target location.
• A way to let the host shares the party information with others so a party can be formed and start voting. (Link? QR code? Party Code?)
• A way to stop anytime and go with the top-rated restaurant.
• Rank top-rated restaurant (may be based on distance and rating) if there is a tie.
• Dynamically change the interface based on users’ votes, changes to the number of users in a group, and when everyone is done voting.

Paper Prototype