School projectNote the Notes

The pandemic made us appreciate socialising with our friends, virtually or physically, at home rather than needing to go out. Note the notes is a gamified version of traditional wine tasting, bringing it to your home. Through the app, friend groups can plan wine tastings, try new wines, learn about wines, and find their new favourite wine, all while socialising and playing a game. Note the notes make wine tasting at home unique and exciting, as it prepares all aspects and allows the wines to be kept secret for all participants.

Note the Notes is a flutter application based on Material Design 3.

My role

Everyone in the group had different areas of expertise, and my role was mainly for the design of the Figma prototype. However, much of the coding work was done together as Flutter was a new programming language for everyone.

The process

Ideation

The framework used consists of four perspectives with associated properties and values. Note the Notes emerged from using a randomiser tool to decide on five properties and associated values, acting as constraints during the ideation phase. This framework together with some inspiration images and and a color scheme worked as a basis for the concept.

	Property	Values	Example
Societal	Framing	Private	The application will be used at home among friends
	Focus	Competition	Everyone in the group will aim to become the ultimate wine taster
Technical	Event triggers	Information based	E.g the app tells person X to smell the wine
	Interaction abilities	Symmetrical	E.g everyone has the same wine notes to pick from in the quiz
Temporal	Engagement	Sporadic	One can follow the quiz and its tasks, but one can also calmly drink the wine

Specification

To specify the concept further the method 5-W's was applied, and a flowchart was created. This helped us clarify how the app would be used and by whom, as well as the main navigation, the initial flow and establish relationships between actions.

• Who - The application is strictly for users 20+, as it is the legal buying age for alcohol in Sweden. It is also aimed at users who are interested in learning more about wines.
• When - The application allows users to plan events and test their wine knowledge through a quiz based on a generated list of wines secret to the users until after the quiz. While learning about wines, users can find new favourite wines, compete with their friends and make get-togethers more entertaining and exciting.
• When - Depending on the task, the application will be used at different times. For example, it will be used whenever users want to plan an event and during that event. However, as wines are saved as favourites, Note the notes can also be used when buying wines for other occasions at Systembolaget. That way, users can keep buying their discovered favourites.
• When - At home.
• Why - To discover new wines in an educational, social, and gamified way, making the process of wine tasting more exciting and eventful.

Evaluation

The concept and prototype were discussed within a group of 7 people between 25 and 34. Unfortunately, the project scope did not allow extensive user testing. Thus, this session was relatively unstructured and aimed at receiving feedback regarding the concept and design. The participants were positive about the concept and could see themselves enjoying the application. Interestingly, these people had planned similar events in the past. As a result, they especially enjoyed the secrecy aspect, meaning that all participants could join on equal terms. While they did not provide any negative feedback, the session elicited a long discussion about different features that could improve the application even more.

Protoyping

The prototype was created in Figma to realise the concept and visualise the application views. Creating a detailed prototype simplifies the transition to implementation. However, it also took time and reduced the time available for coding within our limited time frame. All components and styling are based on Material design, ensuring we follow all the guidelines for the implementation.