Overview
Background
Home cocktail making has become a common casual activity. However, home cocktail makers often struggle to translate what they have and what they like into confident decisions.
My goal is to design a personalized home cocktail app that supports ingredient-aware decision-making and helps users gradually develop their own taste through everyday mixing.
MixSense
MixSense is a personalized mobile app that transforms home cocktail making from a traditional recipe search into a reflective journey of self-discovery through exploration and scaffolding.
My Role
UX Designer
Designed For
Home cocktail makers
Timeline
Ongoing (Sept 2025 –)
Current Stage
Iteration
User Research
Desk Research, Online Survey, Interviews, Competitive Analysis, Affinity Mapping, Personas, How Might We
I began with semi-structured interviews and desk research to understand the everyday challenges home cocktail makers face when deciding what to make.
I then reviewed existing cocktail apps to identify how current solutions address these needs, followed by an online survey to validate findings and surface patterns around ingredient constraints, decision fatigue, and taste uncertainty.
The collected data was synthesized through affinity mapping to identify recurring themes and decision points, which informed the creation of personas and a set of How Might We questions that guided subsequent design exploration.
Research Insights
"What can I make with what I have?"
"What do I actually want to drink right now?"
Most cocktail apps are designed for short-term task completion, leaving users without support for reflection, self-discovery, or the gradual development of personal confidence in home mixology.
Personas
Challenge
Problem Statement
How might we help home cocktail makers figure out what they can make with what they have, and what they actually want to drink right now?
Ideation
Brainstorming & Sketching
Prototyping
Lo-Fi Prototype & Concept Testing
The lo-fi prototype mainly combined wireframing and sketching, and was primarily used for concept testing.
Key Results
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Users saw the concept as clear, useful, and relevant to real home cocktail-making needs.
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The taste-dimension framework was clear, but needed to be used more consistently across the app
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Swipe cards worked better for quick scanning and lightweight exploration than for detailed recipe content
Hi-fi Prototyping
The high-fidelity version was mainly built with Figma and Antigravity. Using a vibe-coding approach, the core functions were implemented, making it possible to test how the interactions worked in actual use.
Iteration
Usability Testing & Iteration
Ongoing...
Reflection
Takeaways
Through this process, I learned that the designer’s role is not simply to collect user opinions, but to distill them into core problems and meaningful design directions. That perspective helped me shape MixSense as more than a utility app, but as an experience that supports reflection, learning, and growth.