Year on Yelp

This project required proactive design leadership. With no clear initial brief, I defined the creative vision that shaped every asset: visual, copy, and animation.

01 — What Year on Yelp Is

A yearly, personalized story delivered to Yelp contributors: card-by-card highlights of their impact: how many people their reviews helped, categories covered, top photos, reactions, and recognitions. It blends data visualization, celebration, and motivation to keep contributing.

02 — My Role: Design as Creative Direction

I didn't just execute; I wrote the brief. This meant running workshops with product, design, content, and engineering to brainstorm themes, setting evaluation criteria, and coordinating creative deliverables across six months. My primary job was to create clarity and direction for a cross-disciplinary team of 10+ people.

03 — Finding the Theme

The theme is foundational: it gives every visual and line of copy a unifying purpose. Without it, the 14 modules would feel disconnected; with it, they form a single, memorable story.

We brainstormed keywords like connection, journey, and playfulness, which led to four theme options: Constellation, Memory Jar, Food Passport, and Pinball.

Theme Criteria

• Uniqueness
• Relevancy
• Clarity
• Execution feasibility
• Personalization

Constellation vs. Memory Jar

Both finalists were strong. Memory Jar resonated emotionally and supported photo-collages, but focused more on personal nostalgia. Constellation drew on Yelp's brand and the idea of guiding others, keeping the focus on impact and easily mapping to personalized visuals. We chose Constellation for its outward, contribution-centered narrative.

The Core Message

“Like the stars above, your contributions helped others navigate which businesses to turn to in 2023.”

04 — Visual Direction

Once the theme was finalized, I provided a detailed creative brief to guide illustration and animation.

Tone

Bold, warm, and celebratory; standing out from everyday Yelp but grounded in the brand.

Visuals

Landscape backgrounds and constellation icons, with food shapes as star clusters; unique foregrounds per module.

Animation

Three modules (intro, top photo, top review) received Lottie treatment for peak emotional impact. Visual coherence was achieved via tight color and motif constraints, while module-specific details kept things fresh.

05 — Designing the Experience

Format Shift: Scroll to Story

2023 replaced long vertical scrolls with a horizontal, card-by-card format, evoking social stories and creating anticipation. This structure makes each moment feel distinct, and lays a reusable foundation for future recaps.

14 Modules, One System

Each module (reviews, photos, reactions, recognitions, etc.) had its own logic and visuals, shown only to users with qualifying activity. Animation was reserved for the most emotionally resonant beats.

Personalization at Scale

The most reviewed food category had 14 illustrated variations. Rather than custom crafting for each user, design work focused on building a highly flexible system, so each user's recap felt individualized and special.

06 — Outcome

1. Launched December 5, 2023, on schedule across iOS, Android, and Web.
2. User surveys highlighted how the experience reinforced their motivation to contribute and improved brand affinity. One user said, “I loved what this did at the end of the year… Feeling appreciated goes a long way for brand affinity.”
3. The card-based story format created a foundation for easier future builds.

Reflections

1. The theme choice was strategic, shaping every screen's message and emotional impact.
2. Leading cross-functional output meant designing the brief as thoughtfully as the visuals; clarity here determined quality downstream.
3. Personalization at scale is achieved by building the system, not crafting every instance by hand.