Overview
PODO is an app that offers personalized wine curations.
Offers one of the 7 wine identities according to wine preference, and helps to communicate with wine curators(users) who have similar tastes in wine. Also, users who don't know well about wine could easily find the right wine through the Curation maker feature.
Timeline
Sep. 2022 - Nov. 2022 (3 months)
My role
Product designer
Responsibilities
- Conducting interviews
- Paper and digital wireframing
- Low and high-fidelity prototyping
- Conducting usability studies
- Iterating on designs
Platform
Mobile app
Team
Myself
Problem statement
- There are not always wine curators working in supermarkets where most wine consumers buy wines.
- Most wine consumers feel challenged to describe their wine taste and select new wines.
How might we help users to choose the right wine? How might we show users’ wine tastes?
Challenges
- Allow users to discover the wine that fits their tastes and the wine for special occasions.
- Allow users to communicate with each other who have similar wine tastes.
- Create easy-to-understand data visuals for the users' wine taste profiles.
User research
I conducted interviews to build empathy maps and create personas. These activities helped me understand user perspectives and pain points. Although people are able to get information easily by smartphone, they spend a lot of time finding wines that fit their tastes. Also, discussions revealed that due to heavy reliance on wine curators, the satisfaction of wine depends on the curators’ ability.
Target users
- Ages: 20-49
- Wine enthusiast who regularly drinks a bottle of wine at least once a month.
Personas
Summer (24)
“I don't know wine well, I just want to enjoy wine with my friends.”
University student
Library and Information Science Degree
Jay (35)
"I love wine for a long time. I want to keep exploring new wines that fit my taste.”
Software engineer
Bachlor of Engineering
The subject
Summer likes to drink wine with her friends. She likes to bring a bottle of wine when she is invited friend's home. It would be great if she knows friends' wine preferences so she could bring one that fits their tastes but it's hard to know. It's overwhelming there are so many kinds of wine. She gets recommendations from wine curators. She chooses wines depending on the food, mood, and occasion. But not every wine shops have wine curators. Without wine curators, Summer has trouble choosing wine.
Goals
- Wants to know her friends' wine preferences so that she could bring the wine they like.
- Discover wines for various occasions
Frustrations
- Feels frustrated choosing wines without the wine curator.
- Hard to figure out friends' wine preferences.
The subject
Jay loves to drink wine with his wife at the weekend dinner. They have similar wine preferences and like to explore new wines. Jay visits the wine shop twice a month. Jay doesn't trust wine curators' recommendations because it didn't work most of the time. Jay chooses wines based on the wine he likes and the information he found on the internet. Sometimes it bothers him because it takes a lot of time.
He wants to know what wine people drink who have similar tastes in wine. It would be helpful to discover new wines.
Goals
- Discover new wines that fit Jay's wine tastes.
- Save time to explore wines.
- Find people who have similar tastes in wine.
Frustrations
- Not every wine recommendations from wine curators are trustworthy
- Takes too much time to discover wines
User journey map
Summer
User story
As an outgoing person who enjoys wines with friends but doesn't know about wine well, I want to find proper wine for various occasions easily so that I could enjoy various wines with my friends.
Goal
Discover wines for various occasions.
Jay
User story
As a wine lover who has a clear taste in wine, I want to discover new wines that fit my taste so that I could save time and money exploring new wines.
Goal
Find new wines that fit my wine tastes.
Competitive audit/report
I conducted a competitor's audit in order to find out what prominent wine applications were already doing and what user goals they were not reaching.
I found that all of the main competitors don't offer personalized wine recommendations. Vivino offers suggestions of styles, regions, and grapes based on users' preferences but users still need to search for wines by themselves.
Winegraph offers some wine suggestions for various situations but it's not considered users' wine preferences.
If you want to check the competitive audit report, click here.
Information Architecture
User flows
Before I started to design screens, I created user flows in order to understand how users can effectively move through the app overall. Click the image below to see more detailed user flows.
Low-fedility wireframes / Protytype
Before moving on to high-fidelity wireframes and mock-ups, I created low-fidelity wireframes and prototypes to validate user flow.
Usability studies
I conducted moderated usability study to validate the design.
Click the image below to see the whole research.
UX resesarch plan
Note taking
System Usability Scale
Response: 5
System Usability Scale Score: 76.5
Analyzing and synthesizing the research results
I analyzed and synthesized all of the feedback from the research. Using the organized data, I created affinity diagrams, found themes, and came up with actionable insights.
Affinity diagram
Affinity diagram
Prioritized insights
Priority 0
Based on the theme that: curation feed is difficult to find for almost all users, an insight is: users need a more intuitive way to access curation feed.
Based on the theme that: for most users, it’s not immediately clear how to create curation, an insight is: users need better cues for what steps are required to create a curation.
Priority 1
Based on the theme that: it's difficult for most users to distinguish between my wine and my curation, an insight is: users need a clearly distinguished group.
Based on the theme that: most users feel uncomfortable accessing the camera to search for wine, an insight is: users need a more easy way to access the camera to search for wine.
Priority 2
Based on the theme that: most users are not sure what my curation box is, an insight is: users need a description of my curation box.
Based on the theme that: most users are interested in the wine preference test and want to know more about it, an insight is: users need more information about the wine preference test.
Iteration
I conducted two rounds of usability studies. Findings from the first study helped guide the designs from wireframes to mockups. The second study used a high-fidelity prototype and revealed what aspects of the mockups needed refining.
Onboarding
An onboarding experience is a way to introduce users to a new product. I wanted to show briefly what users can do with this product.
Sign-up
I made the sign-up process as simple as possible.
Wine preference test
I created a wine preference test to personalize the app from the start. (This test is a demo version.) There are seven wine identities categorized according to wine preferences.
Curation maker
I created a curation maker feature for users who want to get recommended wine fast and easily.
Search/Taste note
I wanted a seamless experience from searching to adding my wine taste note.
Communication
Users can discover wine curators who have similar wine tastes. Users can check each other's wine profiles, and be friends sharing wine information.
Design guides
Takeaways
PODO was my first project after I completed Google UX design professional courses. In this project, I especially learned how to analyze and synthesize user research and usability studies data. These skills allow me to do more elaborate user-centered design and would be useful for other projects in the future.