Mapping the objectives and user needs
Journey and user-profile workshops, information architecture and sitemap
Before focusing on the app’s design, we need to define the targeted profile types, understand their needs and uses, but also have a business and strategic vision in a very competitive market. To easily visualise the business strategy challenges while keeping a user-centred lens, a User Centered Design Canvas is put in place (to learn more about this methodology, you can read our article and use our template here), followed by a “Note-N-Map” exercise (we’ll cover it on the blog very soon) to start mapping the user experience and the main journeys. These collaborative workshops let us identify the different stakeholders, prioritise their needs and the associated features in terms of managing their wine cellar(s), and design the platform’s information architecture.
Co-sketching workshop
Prioritising the features and components, sketching the screens
Following the shared-vision alignment, the mapping of the user journeys and the prioritisation of the features, a co-sketching workshop is facilitated remotely on Miro, with the technical teams collaborating to ensure feasibility as early as possible.
Wireframes
Once the complete experience is mapped and the sketches of the overall structure and screens are validated, the UX Sprint begins to design the greyscale wireframes. This step is followed by the creation of a prototype, to be able to run user tests with wine lovers who own physical and/or digital cellars.
An understated and authentic identity
A clean visual world serving the platform
To respect the visual codes associated with wine, we favour the use of monochrome, which lets us foreground the bottle visuals as well as the colours used to identify the wines.
A wood-grain texture accompanies the identity to bring character and warmth. Illustrations punctuate the pages throughout the experience.
Managing a digital cellar is a key feature of Automated Cellar. After adding their wine automatically, manually or by uploading their invoices, users can place their wines in their cellars and put them in the desired slot.
To clearly separate the two actions, we use a list view and a visual representation of the cellar showing the arrangement of the bottles.
