Voulez Vous
Your go-to cocktail guide at your fingertips
What are you drinking?
01
Whether you’re making your first cocktail ever or you’re a trained mixologist, everyone at home faces the same issue:
What drinks can I make with the ingredients I have at home?
Simply scan the ingredients you have at home, from spirits to mixers, and make use of old bottles that you don’t know what to do with!
We created an end-to-end iOS Cocktail App
Initially a product of a 2-week design sprint, this is an ongoing piece of work that we aim to develop to the iOS App Store by end of 2024.
Seb Prentice (Engineer & Co-founder)
James Skinner (Product Designer & Co-founder)
Live Scanner
Determine what you can make, with what you have at home
Users can now unlock a range of cocktails with what ingredients they have at home! Simply scan a bottle & the app will determine what drinks you could make.
B2B
Product Promotion
Companies can promote their products through paid placements on the platform. These adverts will be fully integrated into the UI, limiting the impact on the user’s experience.
D2C
We recommend you try...
We want to bolster a user’s experience by recommending new drinks recipes based off a their cocktail knowledge & skill level. What’s more, we only want to suggest & promote our user’s favourite styled drinks (Sweet, sour & bitter etc…)
We’re now on instagram & TikTok. Please check out our content & follow our journey for more!
“This is a super fun app and is definitely something I could use in my life. I just want to use it right now!”
Test Participant #26
“This is a super fun app and is definitely something I could use in my life. I just want to use it right now!”
Test Participant #26
How Big is the demand for
Cocktails, in UK?
Cocktails, in UK?
02
Due to the cost of living crisis people are hosting friends & entertaining more at home. Giving rise to DIY cocktails.
12.4%
The UK alcoholic drinks industry grew by 12.4% over 2017-22.
Mintel’s UK Alcoholic Drinks Review Market Report 2023.
48%
Of adults, in 2022, drank at least once a week with an average of 18 units consumed a week.
(Statista Global Consumer Survey, 2023)
21-39yrs
Cite cocktails and long drinks as their drink of choice. Meanwhile, 40 yrs + prefer beer & wine.
(Statista Global Consumer Survey, 2023)
To validate whether my initial research was true, I conducted my own survey to gauge the interest in cocktails amongst my followers on socials. I promoted the Typeform survey on my Instagram story to specifically learn from my followers how many people drink cocktails & the cadence. And further, whether they make them at home – Why? How? When? Shortcomings?
Nearly all people have made cocktails at home – 90% of participants
People are generally motivated to make cocktails because…
- They’re a fun activity
- They’re tasty
- They signify a special occasion
- The discovery & exploration of flavour combinations
- mix between science & theatre => Exciting & entertaining!
- When done right they’re more impressive than a beer/wine.
- harnessing a skill.
Although some don’t drink or make because…
They’re Expensive
Don’t have the resources: Skills, Equipment & ingredients
Prefer other drinks/health conscious.
Too much effort is required
65% of people make cocktails @ home regularly
- Like watching tutorials
- Tips from pros
- Looks nice
- Simple step recipes
Others inspired by:
- experiences at bars
- Cookbooks & print
69% of participants have old surplus bottles they don’t know what to do with.
And if they didn’t…
They sourced from supermarket, specialist bottle shop, amazon & delivery services.
Nearly all people have made cocktails at home – 90% of participants
People are generally motivated to make cocktails because…
- They’re a fun activity
- They’re tasty
- They signify a special occasion
- The discovery & exploration of flavour combinations
- mix between science & theatre => Exciting & entertaining!
- When done right they’re more impressive than a beer/wine.
- harnessing a skill.
Although some don’t drink or make because…
They’re Expensive
Don’t have the resources: Skills, Equipment & ingredients
Prefer other drinks/health conscious.
Too much effort required
Catering to every Skill Level
03
Studying Skills Not Individuals
Acknowledging the platforms wide and diverse user base, it was particularly important to focus sorting users by skill level rather than by individuals. Spotify’s approach to creating Personas based on behaviour archetypes has been influential to my work (read here).
The Experts
Mixologists
Create delicious drinks at a moment’s notice. They have all of the Kit.
The Aficionado
The Regular Bartender
Enthusiastic about learning more about drinks. Want to refine their skills.
The Hobbyist
Every-now and then
Tend to make cocktails for special occasions. May have some of the kit depending on their interest…
The Newbies
First-time-rounders
Total novices to making drinks; they are drinks amateurs. They have very limited cocktail knowledge.
Onboarding
Personalising based off User’s Skill & Preferences
We want to bolster a user’s experience by recommending new drinks recipes based off a their cocktail knowledge & skill level. What’s more, we only want to suggest & promote our user’s favourite styled drinks (Sweet, sour & bitter etc…)
Feature Matrix
Determining a Feature set for the MVP
Designing a live image scanner
04
Live Scanner
Determine what you can make with what you have at home
Users can now unlock a range of cocktails with what ingredients they have at home! Simply scan a bottle & the app will determine what drinks you could make.
Developing a Brand
05
“You’ve gotta make it pop!”
From our primary & benchmarking research we established we wanted Voulez-Vous to match the nature of cocktails. So the visual identity should be:
- Fresh
- Vibrant
- Playful
Our Primary Goal:
Get people interested in Cocktails –> Democratisation of knowledge: anyone could make a cocktail following some simple steps.
Process
Creating Flexible yet Consistent Components
I designed & refined a generic card that ingested small modules to form a consistent visual language across the app. The card component has various booleans & variants to add further fidelity.
From a dev perspective this made the app a lot easier to build!
Process
Dark or Light Background?
I toyed with the BG colour for a long time. I decided to go with the light colour as it seemed lighter & fresher. At a component level the styling can be toggled as light & dark modes.
Key Takeaways
06
Learning Outcomes
The Importance of Testing & failing quickly
We both have full-time roles. As a side project the time we could commit & that was available to us was limited. So, we had to work in a Lean environment. This focused us to work quickly on the areas that mattered; towards an MVP. This has been a great experience!
Woking closely with a developer
As the co-founder of this project is a software developer we have worked well together rapidly iterating loose ideas into high fidelity pieces of functioning software. It has been awesome to have an open feedback loop throughout the project.
What Next
Beta Test
Whilst I have conducted user testing & research. We need to test out the live app in the iOS ecosystem using TestFlight to highlight any design weaknesses & to further learn from our users.
Make the App Live!
Whilst this seems still like away away… this is the ultimate goal!
