As the number of areas and restaurants was growing in Diningverse it became clear that more streamlined way to choose areas and find restaurants was necessary. Many patrons requested that we add Search to Diningverse. Well, since Diningverse is not your usual restaurant directory, we thought that a “search” would not cut it. We decided to add 2 new features that together combine to provide a quick and streamlined way to navigate the Diningverse. We have added the Area Chooser which allows the patrons to quickly choose a Diningverse area that they would like to further explore and the Area Explorer that allows them to look for restaurants and cuisines within a specific area.
Area Chooser
With Area Chooser navigating between Diningverse areas could not be easier. Just click the Change Area button and the area chooser appears on the screen.
Diningverse Area Chooser
Click inside the textbox and start typing the City or State that you would like to explore on Diningverse.
Area Chooser auto-complete functionality
As you can see in the example above, when you start typing “hil” the Area Chooser auto-complete feature will match all Diningverse areas match the portion of the word you have typed. The “hil” matches Hilton Head Island, Beverly Hills, Mint Hill, Pleasant Hill, etc.
Area Chooser auto-complete
The Area Chooser auto-complete will also match a state when you start typing the two letter abbreviation for the state where the area resides. You can see this in the example above. Typing in “SC” matches various areas in South Carolina (SC). This is cool, however, a much more useful method to get a list of all areas within a state is to go to a Diningverse State listing. For example, to get the areas list for South Carolina just go to diningverse.com/SC.
Area Explorer
The Area Explorer is great once you are already within an area and are looking for a specific restaurant to leave a recommendation or if you’re not exactly sure what was the name of the restaurant but you know the restaurant’s cuisine.
Diningverse Area Explorer
The Area Explorer appears underneath the area navigation. Just click inside the textbox and start typing the name of a restaurant or cuisine.
Diningverse Area Explorer - matched restaurants
As you can see in the example above, when you start typing “grill” the Area Explorer auto-complete feature will start matching restaurants within the area that have “grill” in the name, e.g. Bayfront Grille Sheraton Erie, Casablanca Grill, Joe Root’s Grill, etc. Also, the restaurants with the most recommendations will always appear near the top of the auto-complete list. The Zone Explorer also allows you to look for restaurants with specific cuisine. Just start typing the cuisine you’re interested to explore within the area.
Diningverse Zone Explorer - matched cuisines
In the example above, we started typing “mex” in the Area Explore textbox and the restaurants with Mexican cuisine were automatically matched and offered for our selection. We hope you like this functionality. We appreciate any comments or improvements you’d like to suggest to this functionality.
One Comments
I really like being able to search by cuisine in the area explorer.