Mr.Carson Wine Cooler
Mobile
IoT Device
Cross-device
The voice-activated Mr.Carson is a smart, intuitive wine fridge built for the new millennium. With a friendly see-through touchscreen as door panel, the user can easily scan wine labels with the built-in camera to document and instantly access wine information and suggested food pairings with direct input from wineries and experts. A multi-colored strip lighting inside the compact cellar tracks exact wine placement and empty slots for convenient storage.
Global Team
1 Product Owner, 1 Product Manager, 1 Industrial Designer, 1 User Researcher, 2~4 UI/UX Designers, 3 Hardware Engineers, 2~3 Software Engineers (Nanjing), 5 Mobile App Engineers (Brazil)
Development Time
13 - 24 months, launched in 2018
My Role
Mobile App Design, UI/UX Design, Visual Design, Prototyping
Target Regions
Asia, Europe, North America
Target Groups
Consumer, Trade / Industry (B2B, B2C)
Platforms
Wine Cooler, Mobile
Market Overview
Studies show in global wine market, the buying power between Gen-Xers and Millennials have surpassed Baby Boomers in both volume and dollars. The same is true in China, it’s reflected in the growing sales and huge demand for wine coolers.
Personas
Millennial HENRYs, the abbreviation of "high earners not rich yet," characterize a group of mostly millennials who make $100,000 to $250,000 but feel broke.
Who Are They?
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Higher-than-average income
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Digital native
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Age: 26-37
What Kind of Lifestyle They Chase?
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Work hard and play hard
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Immerse in social networks
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Tend to luxury goods purchasing and high-end leisure
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Luxuriant experience, e.g.enjoy exotic cuisine
I created four Personas and crafted them as visual boards to explore UI directions and speed up communication with internal stakeholders.
Finding Out Pain Points
After the user research, we defined the pain points and found the opportunity for selling points:
As a cabinet, the using way of wine cooler is only for storage.
For HENRYs, it also could be a showcase to meet their demands of self-disclosure and impression management. Based on the transparent display, they will also get more collection details easily.
Sometimes, there isn't enough space for household wine storage.
For remote wine storage support, Mr.Carson can integrate the information of personal local and remote wine collections via cloud data. It is more convenient for real-time wine management.
As wine novices, users would wish to have a coach to guide them into becoming pros.
How about a personal exclusive bartender at home? By voice AI technology, Mr.Carson can be the users’ wine expert for luxuriant living. The users will become pros in wine, and have fun with wine.
Goals & Product Values
The smart voice-activated wine cabinet, leveraging the strengths of transparent display that made the perfect combination of the space behind the display and the information on the screen. Users can get needed information and services at right moment in whole process of wine tasting experience that including wine management, searching and purchasing.
Our goals were to make users:
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Be SMART to managing wine
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Become PRO in wine
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Have FUN with wine, sharing via social media
User Flows & VUI
If Mr.Carson can interact with users via voice, how would that works under what kind of scenario? How can that enhance the experience? The environmental context that frames the voice interaction should be identified. Via training the Natural Language Understanding (NLU) model, the tasks below can be work by voice, as wine name pronouncing, inventory checking, wine storage and searching..., etc.
Usability Test
To evaluate the product’s effectiveness, we did a formative usability test. I made the mid-fidelity prototypes via InVision for the wine cooler and the mobile App.
In the household-used contexts, to enhance the subjects’ understanding, the task design was based on the scenario “Having your friends to your house for some drinks.” Then asked the subjects to execute the tasks. According to the test result, we adjusted some user flows.
Mood Board & Visual Design
I created three mood boards from personas to set up the possible orientations of visual style. After confirming the visual style, I crafted and delivered the high-fidelity UI, and worked closely with the Nanjing team and the Taipei hardware team, keeping aligning to ensure effective collaboration.
Mobile App Design
I took a major role in the mobile App design, making the specification documents, wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity UI. The Taipei design team co-worked remotely with the development team located in Brazil, having a con-call meeting per week and testing for multiple iterations.
Result
Mr.Carson was revealed at the Computex exhibition 2018 as a mockup product. As one of the narrators, I showed demonstrations of the wine cooler and the App to clients and our business partners from the USA, Europe, Japan, Singapore, China, and more. The product team collected the feedback as a VOC (Voice of customers) report for reviewing and design optimization reference.
This product was one of the groundbreaking trials at Compal, it opens sort of business opportunities and connections, looking forward to its application.