wYne

A wine matching app that uses AI to recommend personalized palate matched wines from restaurant menus in a fun and easy way.

 

Overview

There is no denying that companies are more efficient with the addition of technology and the wine industry is not an exception as it can make use of technology in several crucial ways.
One of the most significant tech additions the wine industry has seen in recent years is AI for wine selection. wYne app was developed on the heels of this research to validate the market need for such a product. Our AI algorithm has leaped forward by creating a user palate profile based on a palate discovery quiz which allows them to see exactly what that says about their palate, what that could mean in terms of wine choices, and recommend them their top palate matched wines at restaurants.

Role & Duration

UX/UI Designer | Current

Company: wYne.ai | Team: Yoorim Gye (web designer)
UX Research, Wireframes, UI design, Usability study, Prototype, Testing

Tools: Paper, Pen, Figma, Mira, Jira, Asana, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, Google meet

 

Problem

Choosing wine at a restaurant is daunting
People find it difficult and time-consuming to choose wine or are unsure of precisely what wine they should have at restaurants based on their taste and their meal preferences. For those who aren’t entirely familiar with the wine world, deciphering which wine to order that matches their taste from a list of mysterious-sounding grape names can be an anxiety-producing exercise.

 

Solution

Several global companies have jumped on board to leverage artificial intelligence to aid their customers in choosing wine.

WYNE is a wine matching app that uses AI to recommend personalized palate-matched wines from restaurant menus in a fun and easy way.

 
 

Design thinking…

 

About

WYNE was started with the idea of using AI technology in the wine industry to gain a better understanding of user palate and provide them the knowledge and experience needed to understand and explore the wine world. The results of our AI delivered 90% accuracy from a double-blind tasting test.
Our technology analyzes the user’s response to the palate quiz and provides them with the perfect wine matches at their favorite bar and restaurants in a more fun and efficient way.

| Behind the scenes (What I did before even starting my WYNE Journey)

Having no knowledge about the wine, I started learning more about the wine industry and the factors that influence its growth. Being in California, a wine state made a lot of difference in getting to know the impact of the wine industry over all these years. Visiting some of the wineries and meeting sommeliers, I was able to know the reasoning behind the rising adoption of wine among all age groups from the young generation to the old age population across the globe.

With all the knowledge gained, I started pitching ideas on how to navigate the users to our application. The foundation has already been laid with the PWA version of WYNE, but it was not convincing enough for the users to get the value out of our application. So I had to start with the idea of designing a mobile application that can be a virtual sommelier for the user at restaurants to make their wine selection more efficient.

 

Empathize

| User survey

We created a user survey to get to know our target users and their thoughts on current trends in the wine industry. With finely curated multiple-choice questions, we were able to extract their needs and pain points during their wine experience at stores/restaurants/applications. This gave us tremendous insight into how we can create a wonderful wine experience that users can embrace.

 
 

| User interviews

Gathering all the information from my learnings, we initiated our research with user interviews to find out the process behind the user selecting a wine to having a wonderful wine experience. We tried to build open-ended questions reflecting on their wine habits and their wine selection experiences to get a clear idea of the process and the struggles faced. Some of the user responses are below.

 
 
 
 
 

| Key highlights from interviews

Some of the takeaways from the User survey and interviews have been jotted down that helped us direct to the design solution for our WYNE application.

 

| Competitive analysis

We started analyzing the trend that the competitors in the wine market are following to increase their customer base. We scrutinized the pros and cons of the competitors that could pave our path to conceptualizing a more efficient application for WYNE.

Define

| User persona

After conducting research, we did the thematic analysis. We used the data extracted from our research and user survey/interviews to define our user base more accurately. We created a persona reflecting the archetype for our largest user base and came up with a problem statement.

 

| Problem statement

Michelle, is a business analyst and wine lover who needs a go-to wine application at restaurants for information and recommendations because she needs an efficient way to make a decision in selecting a wine that could match their personal palate so that she gets to have a stress free time.

 

| User journey map

Creating a user journey map gave us a holistic view of the customer experience by uncovering moments of both frustration and delight throughout a series of interactions under a scenario.

 

Ideate

 
 

With the problem statement ready, we tried to determine opportunities for solving the user’s problem with the design using “How might we” questions.

| Brainstorming

Once the problem has been stated, we ran some brainstorming sessions to design a solution. We came up with some user scenarios along the way which led us to create an effective solution for an efficient application.

 

| Task flow

In every scenario, the user needs to go through our application to reach his/her goal under different circumstances. Task flows helped us to unveil any hesitations they may have as they attempt to navigate through the different options, screens, features, and controls of our product, as well as reveal any possible areas of friction.

 
 

| Information architecture

 

Wireframes & Prototype

 

With the above task flow for the user into consideration, we started creating some paper wireframes that can help us in optimizing the user flow path to make it more efficient

Some of the paper wireframes

| Low fidelity wireframes

After jotting down rough layouts on the paper and having a lot of buzz sessions, we started creating low-fidelity wireframes for first-time users and returning user scenarios.

First time user flow

 

Returning user flow

 

Testing

Sample questions

 

| Usability test

Once we arrived at our final version of the user flow, thought of putting it under test for any usability or other issues. The goal of our testing is to satisfy users and it mainly concentrates on the following parameters :

Effectiveness | Efficiency | Findability | Accuracy | User-friendliness of our application

Version 1

| High fidelity wireframes

After the first usability testing, we came up with the first version of the app design considering the user feedback on the design and the flow.

 

| UI Design & Marketing

 

Promotion cards

 

App store images

| Usability test 2

Before the app release, we conducted the second usability test in order to know the effectiveness of the changes that we made from the first test. After a lot of discussions and considering the user feedback from the second test, we made some design changes as well as optimized the flow.

Version 2

 

| Short animation

A short animation showing what our app does and what exactly will the user be getting using our app. The animation clearly served the onboarding purpose as well as used for social media marketing.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Impact

At first, with only the PWA version, not many users showed interest due to accessibility and a lot of user interface constraints. Now the app version made it easy for the user to download from the app store and use it at the restaurants.

  • Many novice users wanted to get themselves educated about their wine palate and respective matches.

  • For more knowledgeable users, our app made it easy for them to choose wine at their favorite restaurants without wasting time in selection.

  • Our app makes it easy for our restaurant partners to know more about the wines that are in demand and can stock it up on time.

 

Future work in the pipeline

Once we planned to release our first version of the app, rough ideations for the next features have been designed to be introduced in the next version of our app. Some of them are Group ordering, Rewards programs….

 

Learnings

  • Always get to know more about your company, before getting to work with them.

  • Having knowledge about your company’s product and its competitors puts you in a great position to find the market gaps related to the growth of your company ahead.

  • Communication and collaboration are the most effective tools that help in carrying out the tasks promptly and more efficiently.

  • Testing at each stage of the design process saves you and your company a lot of time and money.

  • Do not hesitate to put your ideas before company stakeholders as they sometimes can open up more opportunities for the improvisation of your product.

  • Sometimes you need to get out of your designer mind to wear different professional hats like developer, investor…