Client (imagined)

A leading food and drinks guide publisher wants to introduce an app for customers to discover new cocktails and explore recipes.

Challenge

People just getting into cocktails try and learn a few recipes and then stick to them. Exploring new cocktails is becomes mildly scary.

Brand

Deciding on a brand was helpful to answer questions around visual language, tone of voice and qualities of the customers as they cropped up.

The name “free spirit” with the tagline “free your spirit” was chosen to imbue a sense of exploration and breaking free of inhibitions.

Sketching

The objective of the first round of sketching was to expose users to new tastes and random new cocktails to increase their vocabulary.

The concepts played around with the theme of randomisation - so that every time a user opens the app, they see recipes they haven’t seen before.

Prototyping

The “randomisation” feature became the primary way to explore new tastes. Horizontal scrolling was mixed with vertical scrolling to avoid unlimited scroll and slow down the user’s experience.

Feedback from user testing

• “The randomisation feature is cool, but I want to taste something I might like, not just something random.” - 24 year old beer enthusiast, man.

• Users wanted their previous choices to influence recommendations.

Sketching

The assumption that users might like getting recommended totally new tastes was refuted in the user test. This resulted in exploring other ways of recipe recommendation.

Prototyping

The prototype featured a based on your taste section, in addition to collections from people you follow. The recipe was presented in a step by step video. The buttons were given an edge in their personality.

Feedback from user testing

• The step by step video instruction was appreciated. “I can see exactly how to do it” - student, food enthusiast.

• The button personalities was liked. “I like that the button says start mixing, not something generic like continue or okay” - bartender, woman

Learnings

The foundational assumption, which directed the direction of the project was broken in the first user test. I learnt to test as early as possible, especially to validate strong assumptions.

Fidelity gets in the way during the early stages. It’s better to test concepts with prototyped wireframes before going to higher fidelity.