All WorkTripadvisor Associate Director, Product Design 2023 – 2025
Redefining the Restaurant Discovery Experience for Global Diners on Tripadvisor
A North Star vision for Tripadvisor’s Restaurants product that reimagined how diners discover, evaluate, and choose restaurants. This work resulted in increased engagement both from restaurant operators and global diners.
The restaurant detail page on Tripadvisor.
Overview
Tripadvisor’s restaurant product had the inventory but not the diner experience to match. Travelers landing on restaurant pages were bouncing at rates above 50%, menus were missing on most listings, and partners lacked compelling tools to showcase what made their restaurants worth visiting.
This project began as a North Star workshop. We ran a structured process, grounded in research, to define the ideal future experience for diners and our restaurant partners. From there, we translated that vision into a phased roadmap of features that shipped and drove measurable results.
Dish photos and a popular dish shelf added to the menu viewer.
Improved top restaurants list view.
Goals + Approach
Research told us that planning restaurants is rarely a traveler’s first step — it often happens in transit, in-destination, or as a collaborative process among travel companions. Diners were manually comparing proximity, cuisine, reviews, menus, images, and price across multiple tabs and apps.
Our North Star goal was clear: give diners more holistic guidance. We wanted not just a ranked list, but a real sense of whether a restaurant is right for them.
We ran 11 in-depth user interviews to test North Star prototypes. The research covered both the list page—how travelers discover and filter options—and the detail page, where they make the final decision. Key research takeaways shaped every design decision. We found travelers valued personalization and trusted menus most for decision-making.
New and exploratory features for restaurants: must try foods, a new menu viewer, improved map view, and conversational search.
Team + Role
I guided the design across this initiative, from supporting the original North Star workshop through to the shipped product. Our Senior Manager started the project with broad explorations of what served our needs and which visual direction we could go. With my guidance, she laid out the scaffolding of the design based on project goals, research findings, and what would provide consistency across the broader site. I then took over the day to day iterations and improvements that were testing.
The core team included product managers and UX researchers. Data scientists, SEO, media strategy, marketing, and executive leadership joined for roadshows.
The process followed a structured North Star arc: user research → problem definition → brainstorm workshop → sketch & design → stakeholder roadshow → roadmap. I guided the design at every stage, working closely with engineering to understand constraints and ensure fidelity between vision and execution.
OUTCOME
+26%
page views YoY
+51%
listings with menus YoY
-12%
bounce rate
10x
menu publish rate
