The Concept

Help users track their taste in craft beers.

Design Agent wanted to build a creative way for craft beer enthusiasts to track, collect, and rate their favorites. Using a mobile application, users could take a picture of a craft beer and record pertinent data, allowing them to recall details about that beer later. For example, someone could use the app to remember a unique brew discovered on a tour and then recommend it to friends or order it at a restaurant. User ratings would be gathered and analyzed, then surfaced to other app users at retail locations and restaurants to help them make better choices.

The design concept was to mimic an environment that provides emotional connection for craft beer enthusiasts - to present an interface that displays craft beers, wooden shelves, and tap bars. Users could then add beers to their shelf, categorize them with a drag-n-drop interface, and showcase their ratings with captions they created.

Because craft beer is generally served in a glass vessel with no label, this proved to be a major technical constraint given image recognition capabilities in 2011. In addition, a comprehensive global database for craft beers did not exist at that time. To overcome these constraints and make beer discovery easier in the app, we used a capture system with custom image-analysis algorithms (e.g., detecting hue ranges between "Amber" and "Porter") to narrow the set of potential matches.

The Result

A delighted community of craft beer enthusiasts.

The mobile application (iOS 4.0) featured a charming wood-textured shelf interface that allowed scrolling through the beer collection and manipulation via drag-n-drop grid interface. This was accomplished through several innovative techniques since "UICollectionViews" were not available until iOS 6.0. This, along with the use of image techniques and location detection, allowed users to engage smoothly with the app to add, edit and share their favorite craft beers with friends.