In the four years Foursquare has been around, it’s gone from the app that tells everyone about the donut you're currently eating to the app that helps you find the donut you actually should be eating. The evolution of Foursquare’s fundamental purpose, from a geolocation-based social app to a local business recommendation engine, has been mirrored by the app’s design changes over the years—meaning, check-ins and social functions have been demoted while Explore and search have taken over the prime real estate of your phone’s screen.
It makes sense then, in the app’s most recent incarnation launched today for Windows 8, Foursquare is gunning even harder to become your go-to service for telling you what you want and how to get there.
>Users can lean back, making the act of discovery more visual.
The fact that this is Foursquare’s foray into native apps for the non-mobile world is notable. The app can be used across Windows 8 platforms, from your Surface tablet to your desktop computer without its basic functionality changing at all. Foursquare has already proved itself as a reliable source for quick-check information like, what’s immediately nearby, hours of operation and whether or not that burrito place you’ve been eyeing takes credit cards (it probably doesn’t).
Optimizing for desktop and tablet essentially means users can lean back and browse the app’s features at their leisure, making the act of discovery a more pleasant and visual experience. “We re-imagined the context of the app—from being totally ‘mobile’ and on-the-go, to a something that would be appropriate when you are relaxing at your desk or couch,” says Sean Salmon, lead UX designer at Foursquare.
The visual design of Windows 8, with its bold colors and tile-based layout, is well-suited for the new approach. Though the Windows 8 version doesn’t introduce a host of new and notable functionalities, it has done a good job of elevating Foursquare's interface experience, says Salmon. “Windows 8 design patterns helped challenge us to raise our overall visual bar.” Tiles play perfectly to Foursquare’s collection of user-generated photos, and the OS’s focus on intuitive movements and visual simplicity makes it easy to organize the app’s different levels of information like tips, ratings and what’s trending.
>From anywhere on the OS, users can choose Foursquare to power their search.
But the coolest of the app’s features is also probably the most telling about Foursquare’s immediate future. From anywhere on the OS, users can choose Foursquare to power their search. So say you're curious about the best pizza place in a neighborhood—you could search via Bing, but why not just use Foursquare since it has that data on the ready? Making sure the information culled from Foursquare’s 4 billion check ins and 30,000 tips is as accessible and consumable as possible was the main goal of the design.
It was so important that even non-registered users can access Foursquare’s search and recommendation functionalities without signing up for an account. Baking Foursquare search into the OS is a clever and important move that could help make the service a more instinctual choice when it comes to looking for localized businesses. “It’s really about being the best local search and recommendation service,” says David Ban, of Foursquare business development. “It’s about how you show new users that value. Especially for people who don’t think of Foursquare as that when they first download the app, we want to make sure those recommendations are front and center.”
