As an experienced bartender (one of my past lives!), I've come to appreciate the diverse and rich culture of the industry, with its emphasis on classic recipes, community, and curiosity.
However, I noticed there is a gap in the market when it came to cocktail apps. Most were mediocre, offering only limited functionality and lacking social features that are at the heart of bartending.
For this independent student project, I set out to design an app that would provide inspiration and foster connections among bartenders of all levels.
The app features a robust search function, recipe customization, and a social platform to foster the community spirit.
Through extensive research and analysis, I transformed a personal frustration with existing cocktail apps into a well-defined problem with broader implications.
My initial experience with these apps left me underwhelmed, as most offered limited features and left me wanting more. This sentiment was echoed as I conducted a competitive analysis of nine different apps, of which only five stood out as offering useful features.
Okay, so the apps out there could be better (says I). Does this really even matter?
Further market research revealed a few key takeaways:
✧ The pandemic has increased the popularity of making drinks at home, leading to a rise in spirit sales.
✧ The popularity of low-to-no-ABV cocktails and mock spirits has also increased.
✧ Bartending-based content on other sites (namely Reddit and TikTok) are particularly active and influential in connection, education, and inspiration.
Despite the continued popularity of cocktail culture, existing apps fail to meet the needs of potential users. This underscores the need for a more comprehensive and user-friendly mobile app that can provide inspiration and foster connections among bartenders of all levels.
To gain a deeper understanding of user behaviors and preferences surrounding cocktail creation, I conducted user research via an online survey and user interviews.
A total of 52 respondents with varying levels of interest and experience in bartending participated in the survey, while 5 interviews were conducted with individuals who had moderate to high levels of experience.
Through this research, I discovered that users were most interested in a search feature that could provide drink recipes based on available ingredients or taste preferences.
Experienced bartenders were particularly interested in personalization features, such as the ability to add their own recipes to the app's library. In terms of social features, adding and viewing photos of other users' drinks was the most popular across all user groups, with experienced bartenders showing a stronger preference for social connections.
Based on these findings, I focused my persona on the bartending enthusiast, someone with a passion for cocktails whether as a professional bartender or as a curious home mixologist. This persona formed the basis for my app's design and development.
I utilized Information Architecture tools to effectively organize and structure the app's features.
A card sort was conducted to identify primary navigation areas, while a site map provided a comprehensive view of the app's layout. Task & user flows were then used to visualize the clearest and widest variety of paths a user could take within the app.
Now to explore some visual design options. With my user in mind, I knew I wanted the vibe of the app to be stylish, cool, and a bit sophisticated, but without taking itself too seriously—perhaps like your favorite craft cocktail bar.
Curious why a cocktail app would be named neat? I personally liked that it was a bit cheeky, but I put it to an informal poll on my Instagram to see if it would resonate. Of the nearly 70 votes, Neat was the clear winner among the 4 options presented.
My final process included conducting multiple rounds of designing, testing, and iterating on wireframes.
I conducted three rounds of usability tests overall. One moderated test with five participants on lo-fidelity wireframes, and two rounds of hi-fidelity usability tests, one moderated with six participants and another unmoderated maze with 24 participants.
Repeated designing and testing showed me that a lot of design principles require the Goldilocks treatment, making minor adjustments to get things just right.
The 4 most common themes I discovered in my usability testing were:
After the first round of tests, I increased the visibility of the "Cocktails You Can Make" section on the home screen because eyes scanned over it. But after the second round of tests, I decreased the visibility of the same section because leading with an empty section felt unnecessary and even negative.
Similarly, I increased the visibility of the cocktail match feature by turning text into a button, then adjusted visibility by shortening the copy and adding context above.
I cleaned up the selected preferences section by turning it into a card, per feedback from the first round of tests. Then I added back text that was removed from the "clean up," per feedback from the second round of tests, when users shared they wanted more clarity.
Within the drink profile page, I made a handful of minor tweaks based on feedback from my tests, mentor, and peers that made all the difference. This included splitting the drink recipe screen into two sections to help eliminate excessive scrolling and swapping the thumbs up and down for a heart, which eliminated confusion.
One issue I had to address was the bottom navigation. The confusion mostly came from BAR CART. When asked to find and save a particular ingredient, some people wanted to go to SEARCH.
The intended structure looked like this:
SEARCH / COCKTAILS = Where to search for drinks (by name or through the Cocktail Match feature)
BAR CART / INGREDIENTS = Where to search for ingredients (in order to discover what drinks you can make)
So the easy solution would be to change BAR CART to INGREDIENTS for clarity.
However, despite some initial confusion, everyone still loved the name “BAR CART” for this particular purpose. They said as soon as they understood, that it made sense to them.
Therefore, I kept BAR CART as it is and instead changed SEARCH (which feels more universal) to COCKTAILS. If I had more time, I would be curious to test on this further.
Each time I had doubts about this app or decisions I was making, I simply 1) leaned into my persona and considered the user 2) asked for feedback and 3) ran tests.
Even though I completed this project as the sole designer, it was absolutely still a team effort. Countless people helped guide me to make countless iterations, and they all added up to this final product.
If I were to continue this project, there are a few things I'd like to focus on first:
Photo credit:
The majority of cocktail photos were taken from Liquor.com who credits Tim Nusog as the photographer. Other photos were taken from Upsplash, Pixabay, and Pexels. A few user photos were taken by yours truly and my friend Jordie J.
Content credit:
Most of the content—drink descriptions, instructions, etc.—were my own, in which case I need to give my old bar manager Leigh a shout out for bestowing so much knowledge upon me, most of which I had to look back up from his study materials because I forgot it. I also leaned on some competitor apps (namely Bartender’s Choice and Elemental) for inspiration.