Have you ever gone into a restaurant and felt yourself transported into a culinary version of heaven? How about going into coffee house and finding yourself getting an unsatisfactory experience? In both cases we often find ourselves gushing to the next person we meet about our experiences, or taking to social media platforms and writing lengthy essays on how great or terrible a place was. There are apps like Zomato which were created for the sole purpose of reviews, glorifying or otherwise, like these. Then there’s SampleMe.
SampleMe is an app that lives by the hashtag #allaboutme, though another mantra that is strong is “give2get”. It’s an app that lets you post a review about an establishment, to then instantly reap the rewards of doing so, while still within its premises.
A user simply has to sign in via Facebook and they’re instantly loaded into the app interface, where they can see a Facebook-like feed of other peoples’ reviews. However there is something to be said of the general appearance of the UI. Navigating SampleMe is as easy as traversing Daedalus’ Labyrinth and the app is as visually appealing as the Minotaur in said Labyrinth. The interface is hard for someone who has no knowledge of the app to use. It’s cluttered with numerous icons, most of which open up separate interfaces that are not clear in function.
That being said, once you actually discern the means of navigating the app, it’s function is easily utilisable. You can view your own profile letting you view all the reviews you’ve done so far. You can also view all your reviews by clicking points, which let’s you view a chronological list of all your reviews. The trends section was not available in the latest version of the app I was testing. Goods In is another section that I assume to be the place where your rewards are stored.
That said, you have three more icons below the four main ones that are a bit more harder to utilise. The one on the right, upon opening is the place all your coupons are kept. The middle icon is for venues but does not seem to make use of GPS; you will have to type in the name of venue you’re currently reviewing for you to select said venue and then to review it. Furthermore trying to review a specific branch of a chain of restaurants proved to be impossible in most cases as not all branches are registered in the app yet. The last icon is the Sample Hub, which remained empty during my tenure with the app.
SampleMe is still in its diapers, it only has around a 100 downloads of the Google Play Store, and as a result it still has some distance to cover. It needs a serious revamp of its UI to make it appealing for instance, and it also needs to stop requiring my Bluetooth to be turned on for no useful reason whatsoever. However, the concept of instantly redeeming rewards, which for the most part are coupons (though you can redeem super prizes by stocking up on points), on the go is something that can potentially turn this app into a must have for anyone who steps out the front door. But a UI redesign is sorely needed.
SampleMe is available on the Google Play Store here and the Apple App Store here.
