Background

Drinking is a huge part of Australian Culture and is mainly connected to social situations, whether that’s at a party at a friend’s house or going out for drinks after work. Along with this, Western Australia is known for its wines, with everyone recommending that you head to Swan River to have a taste.

At the current moment, there are few options for people who want to get more into drinking, especially wines. For recommendations, they would either have to go on a wine tasting tour or they would have to as a friend, who might have a totally different taste compared to them. Our target audience is people getting into drinking culture; age-wise, these tend to be around their mid-20s. They need a place where they don’t feel judged and instead feel comfortable exploring their options with wine drinking.

The Problem

When people start out with drinking wine, they’re not sure what wine they’ll enjoy and can be confused about where they can start. It can be frustrating to read through tasting notes and descriptions and determine if you’ll like the drink you order. The Wine Industry can be daunting with its professional imagery and traditional styles, making it harder for people to feel comfortable when they are new to it.

Introducing WineMatch

A web app that focuses on providing users with recommendations by determining their taste palate and introducing and educating them on new drinks. On WineMatch, users first go through a small quiz and get assigned to a category where they receive recommendations of different wines that they might like. It would be a much less traditional app, allowing users to feel comfortable exploring without judgement. Getting started when you’re a newcomer to wine can be challenging, but WineMatch will find your perfect wine — a match made in heaven.

User Goals

After doing all Interviews, Surveys, and creating personas and scenarios, the top three User Goals were written out - these were what we would focus on when designing the app.

Find the perfect wine = Users aim to easily find a wine that they can enjoy in bars and wineries in the WA region.

Support the local market = Users aim to support the Western Australian economy and market by accessing the suggestions of the local wines. Supporting local businesses is being promoted more than ever before, and with concerns for our carbon footprints and the involvement of large companies in climate change, younger generations are encouraging each other to shop locally.

Explore different options = Users aim to try different wines as they develop and refine their taste in wine and get familiar with the local market.

User Research

Personas

Scenarios

Scenario 1

Lisa is about to go out to with a couple of her friends to have dinner. She knows that she might not enjoy her drink as she doesn’t really enjoy the taste of alcohol. She has heard of an app that will allow her to find a good pairing based on her taste and as she doesn’t have enough knowledge to do it by herself she decides to give it a try. She does the quiz and is recommended a local wine that is found where she is going. As she was also able to do some filtering based on the price of the wine she is able to keep it within her budget.She goes out with her friends and orders the recommended wine, she really enjoys her glass of wine and decided to give wine an opportunity with the different recommendations.

Scenario 2

Bernet is constantly trying to explore and try new drinks. He normally goes out one or twice a week with friends and usually drinks beer. However he is feeling more adventurous and is looking to try wine. He doesn’t want to try the usual so he looks for an app to make the process easier as it has a randomised selector. The first time he was not a fan of the suggestion but he didn’t let that stop him so he kept trying and found suggestions better suited for his taste. All the different suggestions allow him to develop a better understanding of his taste and of the overall world of wine tasting.

User Flows

Full User Research

Features

Home View

Winematch is a web-app where users first take a small quiz regarding their food or taste palette. They first log in, and then go through the short quiz, which provides us with enough content to put them into a category - Brave Drinkers, Balanced Drinkers or Delicate Drinkers.

Results

From this, the user is given 3 wines to browse through, ones that are guaranteed to suit their tastes. They get a small introduction for the wine and then information on the body of the wine, the alcohol content, and whether the wine is dry or sweet. The User is given the ability to favourite the wine, to come back to later as well.

Lucky guess

There was also a “lucky guess” section added, where users who were willing to explore and be adventurous could get a randomised drink. It was inspired by “spin the bottle” - since the target audience is early to late 20s, we thought it was a fun way to present the information.

Other Screens

A lot of other screens were designed as well, specifically the User-Specific Home Page, the account screen and the admin section where the admin could input new drinks in.

Figma Document

Future Considerations

There are many features that can still be added in the future. One popular one is where users can get drinks recommended based on their drinking history. A more social aspect can be added where users can make their profiles “public” and have their main “pick” displayed for other friends to try out as well. Another popular suggestion was a review feature where people could write reviews on drinks they’ve purchased. As the app continues and gets more data, it would be interesting to create more categories, instead of just three to help narrow down the taste palate and really get the “perfect” wine that they look for.Another feature that could be added was a “recommending wines for events or holidays” so something like “Anniversary Wines” or “Birthday Wines” where users would specifically look at wines to order for these special days. This can also include public holidays etc.If this service would be available nationwide, it’d be imperative to partner with the wineries in each state, as a majority stated that they would prefer Australian local wine over imported. It also creates a strong sense of identity for the website and helps create more trust and reassurance between them and the customer.

Medium Article

WineMatch