Imaginary client: Total Wine & More is America's Wine Superstore® -the country‘s largest independent retailer of fine wine and spirits. A company started in 1991 in Delaware. Today, they operate 186 superstores across 23 states and continue to grow. Total wine has own e-commerce website where they sell products online and delivery services. I chose this company for my last UX design challenge at Ironhack Bootcamp.
People drink alcohol. They did it years ago and they are doing it now. That's how the world is set up. People like to drink wine, beer, and especially cocktails. They trying to make their drinks tastier that's why prefer cocktails more. The problem is, they don't know how to make it.
Nowadays people are drinking everything without understanding what is that, how it impacts your body. I can tell that from prospective a guy who was serving these drinks to them. I used to work as a bartender and know the tastes and preferences of customers. In my opinion, there is some percentage of people who only drink to get drunk.
I want to bring drinking culture in Miami and all over states to the new level. Teach people how to drink right and how to do it in another way than they get used to. Provide some solution to people who chose shot of cheap vodka over tasty cocktails that could bring more fun to their's life. Because fun is the main reason why people consuming alcohol, isn't it? Want to show them that cocktail making is not so hard process and they can learn it. So I'll try to make that fun- tasty, easy and enjoyable.
I started my research with Lean survey canvas to put everything together and have in one spot in front of me. Lean survey canvas helped me to understand a couple of things that would help me to solve my problem. They are:
-What information do I know already about that problem
-What do I need to learn?
-Who do I need to learn from?
-How do I reach these people?
-What do I need to ask these people?My next step was to build my survey. Based on canvas I created a list of questions for it. They are:
1) Whats your gender?
2) How old are you?
3) How often do you drink alcoholic beverages?
4) What type of alcohol drinks do you prefer?
5) How many cocktail recipes do you know?
6) Where do you look for cocktail recipes?
7) Where do you normally drink?
8) Whats your main goals when making cocktails?
9) What prevents you from making cocktails?
10)What challenges do you experience when making cocktails?
After I finished with my surveys and collect all data and I started to conduct interviews to get more information about that problem. During an interview, I could ask more specific questions and get more qualitative data from my target audience. So I created a list of questions that I would ask during interviews.
After gathering all my quantitative and qualitative data, I organized all the research into an affinity diagram, where I was able to categorize the findings into sections and hone in on the 3 main pain points. So my top 3 pain points were:
-Lack of time while preparing cocktails
-Lack of skills
-Lack of ingredients for making any tasty cocktail
Also, I found out that people are looking for information in different places. Cocktail recipes are too complicated to follow. People are getting confused with liquor measurements.
Based on my research results and affinity diagram I build my user persona. This tool helped me to empathize with my target user.
Taking into account the top 3 pain points I create a user journey. This journey helped me to understand the way how my persona solve his problem when facing the challenge while making cocktails. It helped me to see the Patrick's lowest points during his journey. Where and when did he feel top frustration and confusion with something?
So based on my User Journey I realized that Patrick is more stressed when he:
-Looks for cocktail recipes all over the places
-Shop for ingredients
-Stays in traffic for an hours
-Makes cocktails
After defining my strategy I started putting some ideas on a paper. Was thinking about features that could solve the user's pain points and differentiate my app among others. For that purpose I used a very good tool, calls "Moscow method". It helped me to organize app my ideas and prioritize my features. I divide all of them by next categories:
-Must have features
-Should have features
-Could have features
-Won't have ones
After brainstorming I did one round of concept sketches to describe my features on paper. Then I created a sitemap to see the whole hierarchy.
Bar Buddy app positioning itself like drinking club for people that care what they drink. Bar Buddy is your pocket bartender, virtual buddy that helps you to make cocktails for your kind of party. As a registered user, you can pick your thematic box, full of liquor and barware based on cocktail(s) that you want to prepare. The box will be shipped to your door at the exact time and date that you choose. Once you received it you can make your favorite cocktails with a help of videos and step by step instructions.
Based on my concept sketches I created low-fi wireframes of my future app. I used "Crazy 8's" technique for that to get as much screen ideas as possible. After screen analyses and some design improvement, I came up with the final version of low-fi wireframes.
After 2 rounds testing of my low-fi wireframes, I made some changes based on users feedback and created the mid-fi wireframe. (Scroll down to see testing results and main changes.)
Now take a look at what I came up with:
After testing of my low fi and mid-fi wireframes I made some changes based on users feedback and improved my screens in hi-fi prototype. Here are the main changes what I made moving from low-fi to mid-fi.
Now We are proceeding to the interesting part of the project. In order to start creating our Hi-fi wireframes, I had to define colors, mood, and vibe of my app. So I created Style tile based on mood what I'm trying to express with my design.
I did desirability test of my Style tile with 5 users and they validated my brand attributes like:
Based on feedback from testing Mid-fi I started working on Hi-fi wireframe and fix all issues.
Take a look at my test results:
Next step was the creation of Hi-fi prototype, taking into account style tile, mood and brand attributes that were validated earlier. Look at the result:
During the process of creation, I developed a Style guide. This is a tool that shows all atomic elements that app was build from in one place. Also, it helps app members of design team be on the same "UI" page even if they just start working on a particular project.
Usability test went well. All 5 testers completed task fast and easy. I received the next feedback:
-Easy to use
-Clean
-Fun
-Problem-solving
Next step was prototyping. I used Invision prototyping tool for that kind of task. I did all relation between the screens and assign click spots wherever it needed for my happy path. Speaking about micro-interactions I used Flinto to bring some animation to my prototype. I combined everything together and look what I got:
Ok, Let's sum that all up. We had a problem with drinking culture where people prefer to consume more simplistic drinks over making cocktails because of different frustrations and challenges in their's way.Our research showed us 3 main pain points of my target audience.
There are:
-Lack of time while preparing cocktails
-Lack of skills
-Lack of ingredients for making a tasty cocktail
Also according to the research, we found out that overall people would like to drink cocktails more, to make their drinks tasty.So my strategy was based on a hypothesis: "How might we help our users to make cocktails in a faster and easier way".
Basically, I reached my goal, according to positive usability test results. All 5 testers were satisfied with user experience while using the app. All of them were able to complete their task.
What was done to accomplish my goal:
-We saved our personas time with fast 1 h. delivery of ingredients to the door
-We build step by step instructions with the video for users with zero experience in cocktails making.
-We cut video instructions for small parts (steps) that users can jump between that easy and fast. That saves time when you missed some preparation moment and want to go back in time and find that exact moment
-We selected only "easy to make" type of recipes to improve the user experience.
-We personalize our Bar Buddy Boxes for different needs and type of events or parties.
-Since your Bar Buddy Box has it's own theme, in addition to Spirits you will get thematic supplement or accessories to make your party more bright.
-We would ship to you a basic set of barware with your first order. It would have fixed measurement tool for all your next boxes that would not confuse you next time.
-QR code integration will let you find full recipe book your a couple of tasty cocktails within a second.
-A different selection of themed boxes will help you to impress your friends or date with amazing bartender skills.
-Everything all you need would be in one single box.
-All your leftovers will be moved to your virtual bar under "cabinet" tab. So you can stock your bar more with every Bud Buddy Box. Also, you would have the option to add some spirits manually to keep track on your home bar.
-The app would generate possible cocktails that you can make based on your "cabinet".
-Easy to use app will allow you to sent up the order within 2 min.
-The user would have an option to chose the number of servings per each box.