Project Overview
The Product:
The Bartenders Guide to the Galaxy is a responsive social media website/app developed for bartenders, mixologists or anyone who wants to learn and share cocktail recipes and knowledge.
The Problem:
There is no online community for the hospitality industry. There is a lack of possibilities to gain inspiration, grow your network, and learn new drinks.
The Goal:
The goal is to develop a responsive website where service industry professionals can save drink recipes, gain inspiration, train new employees, network, and apply for jobs or hire employees.
Responsibilities:
Conduct user research by developing personas, problem statements, and journey maps. Conducting a usability study with potential future users, create wireframes, and develop low fidelity and high fidelity prototypes.
My Role:
Lead Researcher and Designer
Project Duration:
June 2022 - September 2022
Understanding
The User
-
User Research
-
Personas
-
Problem Statements
-
Ideation
User Research: Summary
My user research included interviews and questionnaires. I started with having 5 people from different service industry backgrounds interact with some major social media platforms. I then had 5 people, not in a service industry profession do the same. Afterwards I conducted interviews to understand their feelings toward each platform. I developed a questionnaire to determine if the ideas I had to develop a platform geared toward the hospitality industry would be something frequently used by them.
User Research: Personas
With the first research study complete and I have their major pain points to consider, creating personas will help group the majority of users in to specific categories. I created two separate personas to capture the key target audiences views and user experiences.
Personas: Amir
Problem statement:
Amir is a mixologist who needs to gain inspiration for new drink recipes because he is creating a new drink menu for his restaurant.
Personas: Aysha
Problem statement:
Aysha is a Party Planner who needs to hire and train a
new bartender because she has an event with themed cocktails to serve.
Ideation
During the ideation phase I was able to quickly create and come up with ideas with paper wireframes and using the crazy 8’s method it gave me many ideas on how to make the experience for the user much more engaging.
Starting
the design
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Digital wireframes
-
low-fidelity prototype
-
Usability study
Digital Wireframes
Users wanted a way to save and share job postings directly on the site. Employers wanted a way to create a job listing and view their candidates resume, and social activities before setting up interviews.
The job search will allow the user to save, apply, or share a job posting
Employers can create a job posting and set up interviews directly on the site
Low-fidelity Prototype
Creating a smooth flow was the main concern from the research. The connections and pages need to be clear for an easy user flow.
Usability Study:
Parameters
Study Type:
Unmoderated usability study
Location:
United States, Remote
Participants:
8 Participants from different backgrounds
Length:
20 - 30
Minutes
Usability Study:
Findings
1
Users need to be able to
save and share job
postings
2
Users need a way to
train and share drink
lists with other users
3
Users need to have options for drink searches
refining
the design
-
mockups
-
High-fidelity prototype
-
accessibility
Mockups
Creating a smooth flow was the main concern from the research. The connections and pages need to be clear for an easy user flow.
Before usability study
After usability study
Users wanted an option to save and share job postings
Directly on the search function.
Before usability study
After usability study
High-fidelity Prototype
This high-fidelity prototype was developed from the usability study findings . Below you will find an embedded code for the web design and mobile design to allow you to access the prototype.
A smooth and user friendly design was first priority. The user flow was developed to be intuitive, easily navigated, and clean.
Accessibility Considerations
1
The first accessibility
consideration was to
include many icons to help with those who may not have experience with the English language so the icons can be universal.
2
The color scheme
was created keeping
vision impairments in mind. Utilizing colors that are complementary and
easy to see.
3
The ability to utilize
a screen reader
was implemented
in to this design.
Responsive
Design
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Information Technology
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Responsive Design
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Going Forward
Sitemap
I wanted to create a smooth user flow. Creating a sitemap gave me the ability to map out the user flow before creating the hi-fidelity prototypes.
Responsive design
The feeling of each design should be uniform. I wanted users to be able to seamlessly jump back and fourth between the app and the website without having any issues with the process.
Going Forward
Impact:
The Bartenders Guide to the Galaxy can be the Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Google and indeed of the service industry. A place where you can be inspired, learn, and network.
What I Learned:
I learned that there is a great need for creating responsive websites. In this day and age people have all sorts of screen sizes and to make sure everyone has the same experience is very important.
Next Steps
1
Testing of the high-fidelity design is complete and the necessary changes have been made. The design will now be handed off to the development team to implement the designs.
2
Once the development team launches the new design there will still be monitoring of the websites overall function. The design process is a constant cycle that will always need tweaks and changes.
3
Continuously improve the design with small changes and keeping the design up to date. This will allow a great user experience for many years.
