Role
UX/UI Designer.
Overview
Brew Crew is a mobile app for craft beer lovers to explore and share the local brewing scene in Christchurch, New Zealand.
Challenge
With the well publicised growth in the craft beer market within New Zealand, and the numerous breweries and brew bars already in Christchurch, there is potential to help that industry gain more exposure from both the local and tourist markets by making these locations more accessible.
The challenge is to design an interface which both tourists and locals to Christchurch can find local breweries and brew bars, create routes to visit locations and share with friends. The goal is to create an easy to use, informative and enjoyable experience for users.
Approach
I created a survey to help define a target audience for the app. From which user profiles where created. Scope for the project was also defined. This was that the Brew Crew app would enable users to perform filtered searches, list nearby locations, share locations with friends, save favourites, receive and unlock special deals, plot and plan routes, create a personalised profile and follow breweries/bars for news, deals and updates of beers on tap via a News Feed feature.
A competitive analysis was undertaken comparing both direct and indirect competitors to help narrow down the features required on the MVP. User story sketches and low fidelity wireframes were created and tested with the target audience.
For the look of the app I created mood boards to help get the direction I wanted to head. The colour palette that developed from that exploration was a mix of dark black tones, with contrasting yellow and golden colours – which is inline with the colour space of most beers.
I began with designing the custom icon set for that range of location and service types. In my mind it was important to really nail the look I wanted for these near the start of the project to then help flow on to the style of the interface.
Solution
The aim was to design modern and stylishly designed interface. One that made the information about each location clear for the user and at the same time visually pleasing.
The main navigation steers users towards the key features of the app. The route planner, news feed, search feature, map view and user profile screens.
The interface is a mix of dark UI style elements with contrasting areas with white backgrounds. This makes content easy to read for the user and at the same time giving a modern slick look with the dark UI features.
To support the Brew Crew app, I also designed a website interface. The website would offer the same search ability of the app with the map feature and news feed stories. However the key feature of the route planner, which is a point of difference to direct competitors, would only be available on the mobile app.