Explore, save and share your favorite breweries & brews with the BreweryDB mobile app.
Project
BreweryDB
Role
Senior Product Designer
Date
2022 - 2024
Objective
The goal was to create an engaging native app for iOS and Android to enhance the craft beer experience for enthusiasts. The app was designed to allow users to search and explore breweries and brews on an interactive map, plan brewery routes for trips using flexible map route-building tools, and leverage native features such as location sharing and push notifications for personalized experiences. Additional features included intuitive onboarding, a curated explore screen, the ability to create and share personalized boards, and brewery-specific filters for a seamless and enjoyable user experience.
Discovery & Research
The project began with user research through interviews and surveys with beer enthusiasts and travelers to understand their pain points and preferences. Competitive analysis of similar mapping and travel apps, such as Google Maps for route building and Yelp for discovery, provided insights into best practices.
Key Features
The app featured an interactive onboarding experience with a simple, visual flow that helped users quickly understand its benefits. Onboarding progressively revealed features such as location sharing and notification preferences. A curated explore screen displayed nearby breweries and brews based on user location, activity, and promotions, with dynamic content blocks showcasing trending breweries and limited-time offers.
An interactive map with brewery-specific filters allowed users to filter by type, such as microbreweries or brewpubs, or specific offerings like dog-friendly spaces or food service. Breweries were displayed with distinct icons for easy navigation. The map route builder enabled users to create routes with multi-stop functionality, adjusting brewery selections based on radius and preferences while providing travel times, brewery descriptions, and custom alerts for deviations or optimizations.
Users could create and share boards of their favorite breweries and brews, adding a social feature for collaboration and discovery among friends. Native integrations included push notifications to alert users when near saved breweries or new promotions and location sharing for real-time updates with friends on trips.
Design Solutions
To simplify the complex brewery data, a backend strategy was developed with the engineering team to standardize data formats. Modular UI cards were designed to dynamically adapt to available data, with fallback elements for missing information. Flexible navigation was crafted with an intuitive tab-bar system prioritizing Explore, Map, Boards, and Profile. Gestural controls ensured smooth map interactions with quick filters.
The visual identity adopted a warm, earthy color palette and modern typography to align with the craft beer aesthetic. Visual hierarchy was emphasized through large brewery thumbnails and clear call-to-action buttons, enhancing usability.
Outcome
The BreweryDB native app achieved significant success, with a 25% increase in new user accounts within the first three months driven by the engaging onboarding experience and feature set. User activity saw a notable boost, especially in creating and sharing boards, which fostered a social component to the craft beer experience. Positive user feedback highlighted the ease of discovering breweries and the utility of the route-building feature for travel planning.
