UX/UI Case Study

Project Goal: Design an intuitive mobile app that helps wine lovers discover events and venues and connect with others through reviews, favorites, and planning.

Role: UX/UI Designer

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There’s no single platform that helps wine enthusiasts find local events easily or connect with others who share their interests. Existing information is fragmented, making exploration and community building challenging.

Problem Statement

Design a user-centered mobile experience that brings together wine events, venues, and communities into one intuitive platform.

Possible Solution

There’s no single platform that helps wine enthusiasts find local events easily or connect with others who share their interests. Existing information is fragmented, making exploration and community building challenging.

Problem Statement

Design a user-centered mobile experience that brings together wine events, venues, and communities into one intuitive platform.

Possible Solution

The Design Process

Discover

User Interviews

User Research

Define

Personas

Requirements

Affinity Diagram

Develop

Storyboard

Sketches

Wireframes

Prototyping

Test

Usability Test Plan

Discover Phase

User Research

To better understand how wine enthusiasts discover new events and connect with others, I conducted one-on-one contextual interviews with three participants. The goal was to identify common motivations, behaviors, and frustrations in their discovery process.

User Interviews

I interviewed five participants who regularly enjoy wine in social settings to understand how they find and engage with wine-related events.

Key Interview Insights

Wine enhances social connection.

Discovery often happens through word of mouth.

Convenience drives participation.

Food pairings elevate the experience.

Local exploration feels more accessible than travel.

Define Phase

Affinity Diagram

After reviewing interview transcripts, notes, and observations, I created an affinity diagram to identify recurring themes in user behaviors and pain points. By clustering related insights, I uncovered key patterns around how wine enthusiasts find events, connect socially, and what factors influence their participation. These clusters helped define the foundation for my user persona and informed design priorities moving forward.

User Personas

Based on the insights gathered from my interviews, I developed a persona representing the typical Wine Fix user. This helped translate qualitative data into a relatable character, clarifying user goals, frustrations, and motivations to guide design decisions throughout the project.

Ava Robertson

Age: 35 | Gender: Female | Occupation: Marketing Manager | Location: San Francisco, CA

Ava is a 35-year-old marketing manager from San Francisco who thrives on connection and shared experiences. She loves discovering new restaurants and wineries, often organizing wine tastings and dinners with friends. While she enjoys wine, her real passion lies in the social and cultural moments surrounding it.

Tech-savvy and resourceful, Ava uses Google and social media to find new wine spots, but often feels frustrated by scattered and unreliable information. She values convenience, authenticity, and deals that make her outings more accessible. Ava envisions a platform that helps her discover new venues, plan effortlessly with friends, and make every glass of wine part of a memorable shared experience.

Goals:

  • Discover new and interesting wine venues and events

  • Have seamless and enjoyable experiences when planning wine outings

  • Create memorable social experiences around wine

Frustrations:

  • Difficulty finding reliable and comprehensive info about local wine venues

  • Challenges in organizing group outings and aligning schedules

  • Frustration with the lack of personalized recommendations and deals

User Requirements

From Ava’s goals and frustrations, I defined key user requirements to guide the app’s design. These requirements focus on usability, personalization, and social connection, ensuring Wine Fix is easy-to-use and engaging for all.

Seamless Navigation

Integrated Event Calendar

Detailed Venue Insight

Personalized Recommendations

User Reviews & Ratings

With user insights and requirements defined, I began brainstorming how Wine Fix could bring together exploration, personalization, and community in one cohesive platform. Through quick sketches and concept exploration, I merged several early ideas, including the homepage, map view, and personalized recommendations, into a single intuitive flow.

User feedback reinforced this direction, showing that combining profile customization with real-time venue discovery created a more personal and engaging journey.

Develop Phase

Sketches & Storyboards

Early Sketches

Storyboard

Building on the refined sketches, I developed a paper prototype to test basic navigation and task flow. Insights from this quick, low-fidelity round helped shape the medium-fidelity digital prototype, where layout and functionality began to take clearer form.

Medium Fidelity Prototype

A black and white illustration of a smartphone displaying a user profile screen with a profile picture placeholder, name, and preferences for wine and venue locations, along with a navigation menu at the bottom.
A smartphone displaying a map with several location markers, a search bar, and a navigation menu at the bottom with icons for home, location, drink, event, and profile.
Mobile payment options screen showing Visa, Amex, and PayPal logos with selection checkboxes and a confirmation button. Navigation bar icons include home, location, coffee, calendar, and profile.

The final high-fidelity prototype captures the full Wine Fix experience, blending navigation with a clean, modern interface that celebrates community and discovery. Designed in Figma, the prototype reflects the journey from concept to execution, with a focus on clarity, warmth, and usability.

A smartphone screen displaying an online event or product page with a sketch-style interface. The screen shows a header with the time 09:52 AM, and icons for signal, Wi-Fi, and battery. The main content includes a large placeholder image labeled 'Event/Venue Images,' a distance indicator of 0.2 miles, and details about 'Event One' with a 4-star rating. There is placeholder text, quantity selector for two items, a 'Buy Now' button, a heart icon, and a navigation menu with icons for home, location, wine glass, organizer, and user profile at the bottom.

Hi Fidelity Prototype

Test Phase

To evaluate the effectiveness of the Wine Fix prototype, I conducted usability testing to understand how users interacted with the core flows, finding venues, reviewing recommendations, and saving favorites. The goal was to assess clarity, ease of use, and overall satisfaction.

Usability Test Plan

Defined objectives, target users, and key tasks to evaluate overall navigation and clarity.

Testing Script

Created structured prompts guiding participants through core actions such as exploring events and managing preferences.

Results & Insights

Observed that users responded positively to the visual layout and navigation flow, noting particular appreciation for the event map and personalized recommendations. Minor feedback included requests for clearer labeling and more visible event filters, which informed final refinements.

Final Thoughts: Overall, the usability feedback validated the app’s core structure and confirmed its potential to make wine exploration more intuitive and community-driven.