Weighing Up the New Google+ Local Reviews Experience

I had never felt that bothered to put much effort into writing reviews for Google+ Local, but that all changed with the new experience brought with the updates to profiles and pages last week.

Since the latest round of updates, which brought a new Review tab to the profile (and lot's more), reviews published to Google+ Local are now more prominent and much better looking, with review "cards" lined with a different shade of green or yellow, depending on how the user has rated the business or place.

It's safe to say that it's more than an improvement, when compared to that lone link to a persons reviews that was slapped on to the bottom of the About tab previously.

The Review Tab

The first thing that I did when the profile upgrade rolled out to my account, was head to the Reviews tab to delete my half-assed attempts at reviewing places, now that they're showing more prominently on profiles. Sure, I could choose to hide the tab altogether, but I like to make my experience on Google+ as complete as possible.

The reviews tab, isn't it sexy?

One of my favourite things about the new profile tab is the map card, which is fixed to the top-right of the tab. The map card puts placemarkers on the places that you've reviewed, and I don't know if it's there for psychological reasons, but it makes me want to keep publishing reviews to see the placemarkers appear on the map. I feel that this is one of the reasons why the review counter is there (at the top of the map card) too. If this was the Local team's plan, it sure is working, at least for me anyway.

The review cards themselves have been very well designed, and the lining along the top of the card will change colour depending on how you've reviewed the business or place, with green being positive and yellow being negative (or in Local's terms, poor/fair). You are now also given the ability to add a photo to your review, which is displayed in full bleed. Of course, it's up to you whether you want to snap a photo of your food, or one of the place from the inside or outside to attach to your review card, but it's always good to add a bit of photo personality to your card. It catches the eye, and can sum up how you feel about the overall experience really well. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

I should note that sharing user reviews has gotten a lot easier, thanks to the recent changes. You can now click on someone's profile and click on the Review tab, and share any review that they've published. I don't see a lot of reasons to do this, but it should be enough to take more care when writing reviews as you don't want people sharing a badly-written negative review of yours and saying "Look at this guy...".

Sharing, editing and deleting reviews has gotten easier

Local Pages

Local pages have also gotten a makeover to keep in-line with standard profiles and pages. As before, if a business Local page hasn't been claimed by the business owner, the cover will display a map with the placemarker of the location in the centre, and a user uploaded profile photo. Because of the recent changes though, everything looks fresh and dynamic.

Even when a Local page hasn't been claimed, they still look great

There have  also been some minor changes specifically for Local pages, there's a new location for those small buttons (get directions, star, upload a photo, share, write/edit review). They're now underneath the cover, to the right of the tabs.

Even the recent little changes to the user interface for Local may have made a significant impact in the way a user may interact and feel about the service, I think. I never even used to click on the Local button, but now I do, to find more places I've visited to review, and find new places in the nearby area to visit the next time I head into town.

Though nothing has been changed to the Local landing page (the page you see when you click on the Local icon), but I'd expect to see a similar design direction that Profile, Find People, and Instant Upload has been taking in recent months. But who knows when they'll roll out?

Has the recent updates to Local made you want to write more reviews? I want to know your thoughts, either in the comments below or in the Google Plus Daily category in our Community!