Research
Initial Unknowns
- Who is the modern adult, what are they like?
- What are their motivations around cocktails/mixology?
- What solutions or approaches currently exist?
I performed a 3-week research sprint to provide a solid and informed foundation to design from.
User Interviews
I lead 10 user interviews to figure out who our users were, their goals and pain points.
The key findings from the interviews were:
- User types ranged from occasional enthusiasts to more regular mixologists.
- Users want to discover/explore, experiment/create, share/collaborate.
- Frustrations centred around complex navigation and lack of customisation options.
Contextual Observations
I observed users in physical and digital environments to discover what they did when enjoying cocktails as hosts and guests:
- Prefer a well-organised home bar with essential tools easily accessible.
- Often personalise their home bar space with unique glassware and decorative elements.
- Tend to arrange ingredients based on frequency of use.
- Created cocktails based on a skill level deriving from their prior knowledge of cocktails
- Prioritise visually appealing cocktails with creative presentations and garnishes.
- Actively engage with friends, sharing experiences and seeking recommendations.
- Diverse drink preferences that can change from one event to the next.
- Actively share their cocktail creations on social media platforms via images and videos.
- Seek recognition and validation from peers for their mixology skills.
- Often follow and engage with mixology trends.
- Explore articles related to various drink topics.
Competitive Analysis
Comparing 8 cocktail apps I assessed how they performed in the factors of UX/UI, Features & Functionality, Recipe Database, Search & Filtering Options, Ingredient Information, Personalisation, Community & Socialisation and Educational Content. I described how well they did in each, giving an overall rating out of 10.
The main findings were:
- A clean and visually appealing interface is essential.
- To allow for exploration through related content.
- There were minimal inclusive search features and cocktail groupings
- Most had a lack of educational content and informative topics on mixology
- Nearly all had no video content
User Personas
After synthesising the research results I created four user personas representing our target market and focused on two main user types.