WINEFIND
Duration: 12 week summer internship
Tools: Figma
Primary Role: Product Manager
Secondary Roles: Product Designer, Marketing Lead
​SUMMARY​
During my time at WineFind, I defined the product vision and designed the complete user experience for a mobile app that makes wine expertise accessible to everyone. WineFind allows users to scan any wine label, menu, or store selection to instantly access critic scores, market prices, tasting notes, and personalized recommendations, solving the challenge of making informed wine choices in real-time situations.
Over the course of this 12 week internship, I owned the end-to-end product process, conducting user interviews and usability tests to identify pain points around wine discovery and selection. I translated these insights into a cohesive UX roadmap and designed high-fidelity prototypes in Figma, building a unified design system that spanned the app's entire interface. I continuously iterated on user flows based on behavioral analytics and qualitative feedback, optimizing for retention and engagement.
The work resulted in an MVP that successfully launched and attracted the backing of James Suckling, one of the world's leading wine critics, who became an investor after seeing how the product democratizes wine knowledge!!!
Alongside product, I also led the creative marketing strategy, designed the website & managed the social media that positioned WineFind at the intersection of technology and wine culture, establishing the foundation of the brand's voice and visual identity for them to continue to use!
[PROBLEM]
Wine consumers struggle to confidently choose wines because existing wine apps force them into fragmented, limited, or unreliable experiences. Beginner-focused apps oversimplify and rely heavily on crowdsourced reviews; expert-oriented tools are intimidating and inaccessible; and most platforms compromise usability with intrusive ads or inconsistent scanning technology. As a result, users lack a single, trustworthy, user-friendly tool that helps them discover and evaluate wine regardless of experience level.
WineFind addresses this gap by bringing professional critic reviews,
powerful / reliable scanning tools, and an ad-free, intuitive experience into one cohesive platform.
MOTIVATION
​The wine market is experiencing a major shift: consumers increasingly expect instant, trustworthy, and mobile-first guidance when making purchasing decisions. Whether scanning labels in-store or choosing from a restaurant menu, users want expert-level clarity without needing expert-level knowledge, or having to rely on a sommelier. Current tools fall short, beginner apps oversimplify, expert tools overwhelm, and most platforms rely on inconsistent crowdsourced reviews or clutter the experience with ads.
This created a clear opportunity: users expect the same level of seamless, intelligent assistance they get from apps like Vivino, Beli, or Yelp, but the wine space lacks a unified platform that combines professional credibility, powerful scanning technology, and a frictionless, ad-free user experience. My motivation for taking on this problem came from noticing how even curious, engaged consumers feel lost or intimidated when choosing wine. This aligned with my interest in building intuitive consumer products that make specialized knowledge accessible to everyone.
USER RESEARCH
To understand why choosing wine feels overwhelming for both beginners and enthusiasts, I conducted a series of in-depth user interviews focused on uncovering behaviors, motivations, decision-making patterns, and emotional pain points across the entire wine journey. I structured my research around five key themes: mindset, discovery, memory, decision-making, and social influence. My goal was to identify where friction exists today and what users implicitly expect from a modern wine tool.
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RESEARCH GOALS
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Understand how users think about wine and what shapes their taste preferences
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Identify pain points across discovery, purchase decisions, and remembering past experiences
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Evaluate current tools (apps, notes, heuristics) and where they fall short
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Surface user expectations for credibility, simplicity, and guidance
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Reveal opportunities to support both novice and experienced wine drinkers in real-time contexts
METHODS
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1:1 user interviews with participants ranging from casual drinkers to intermediate enthusiasts
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Contextual walkthroughs of how users pick wines in stores, online, and at restaurants
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Inquiry into emotional states during decision-making (“When do you feel overwhelmed?”)
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Competitor and tool usage evaluations (apps, notes, photos)
WHAT I [LEARNED]
1. Users feel underinformed and overwhelmed, not uninterested.
Across all experience levels, users described wine as “confusing,” “intimidating,” and “a guessing game.” Most didn’t know how to articulate what they liked or why. They wished they understood wine enough to feel confident but lacked a simple way to learn.
User Need: Accessible, trustworthy education in plain language, delivered contextually.
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2. The discovery process is fragmented and inconsistent.
Users bounce between Instagram, friends, Google searches, store clerks, menus, and occasionally wine apps, but none provide a cohesive, reliable experience. The decision process varies wildly depending on the context (store vs. restaurant vs. online).
User Need: A single, unified place to discover wines with clarity and ease.
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3. People forget what they enjoyed, and it frustrates them.
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Almost every user admitted they cannot remember wines they liked: “I recognize the label… but that’s it.” Some kept photos in their camera roll, others used Notes apps, and some tracked nothing at all.
User Need: A simple, effortless way to save, organize, and recall past wines. Like Beli does with food.
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4. Decisions feel most stressful in social or high-pressure scenarios.
Users felt pressure to “get it right” when ordering at restaurants, choosing a wine for a gift, or buying for a dinner party, especially without a sommelier or knowledgeable friend present.
User Need: Context-aware guidance that feels supportive, not judgmental.
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5. Trust is earned through credible sources, not crowdsourced opinions.
Users trust expert voices, knowledgeable friends, or sommeliers far more than crowdsourced reviews. Many felt existing wine apps were “noisy,” “inconsistent,” or “not reliable enough” to base decisions on.
User Need: Professional critic reviews integrated directly into their wine-choosing experience.
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6. Users want to share wine experiences, but existing tools make it hard to
While users enjoy recommending wines to friends, they rarely share through apps because the experience feels transactional or clunky. They wanted sharing to feel more natural and expressive, more like posting a story than posting a score.
User Need: Social features that mirror modern digital behavior and feel authentic.
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RESEARCH → PRODUCT STRATEGY
USER PAIN POINTS
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Discovery: Hard to know what to try next; too many options with little trustworthy guidance
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Knowledge: Language barriers and lack of approachable learning tools
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Ordering at restaurants: High-pressure environment + menu uncertainty
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Memory & tracking: No intuitive way to record past wines or reflect on preferences
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Sharing experiences: Want to share but don't want it to feel like a review spreadsheet
INSIGHT → REQUIREMENT MAPPING
1. Users feel underinformed and overwhelmed→ Provide clear, critic-backed information at the moment of decision (scan → instant clarity)
2. Discovery is fragmented across many platforms→ Create a unified home feed that curates wines, trends, and personalized picks
3. Users forget wines they love → Introduce an auto-organized personal wine journal with photos, tags, and taste tracking
4. Decisions feel stressful in social settings → Add contextual recommendations (e.g., food pairings, vibe-based filters, menu scanning)
5. Users trust experts more than crowds → Integrate professional reviews as a core pillar of the product, not buried behind paywalls
6. Users want to share, but not in a formal “review app” way → Build social features inspired by modern platforms (Beli, Instagram Stories), not confusing exsisting wine apps
These became the first set of functional requirements that shaped early flows and prototypes.
PRIORITIZATION
Value vs. complexity matrix prioritized features that:
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Directly addressed the most painful moments in the wine journey
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Supported our MVP goal: help users choose and remember wines confidently
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Leveraged our unique advantage: access to trusted critic scores, biggest database, best technology
Highest-priority MVP features:
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Label + menu scanning
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Instant critic-backed wine summaries
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“Save / track this wine” with notes, tags, and rating
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Personalized recommendation profiles
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Clean, ad-free navigation + lightweight social sharing
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Beginner-friendly education embedded into UI
This narrowed the feature set into something buildable, testable, and strategically aligned with the user needs that I researched.
Competitor Analysis
To ensure WineFind filled real gaps rather than replicating competitors, I conducted a competitive scan across two categories
1. Traditional wine apps (Vivino, Delectable, CellarTracker)
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I evaluated their:
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Review systems (crowdsourced vs. expert)
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Scanning accuracy
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UI clarity
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Educational depth
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Ad presence
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Social features
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2. Modern social + rating apps (Beli, Letterboxd, Instagram)
I studied these tools not for wine functionality, but for how they solve “fragmented all-in-one experiences”, a similar challenge to ours.
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This validated our decision to differentiate through professional credibility + clean, ad-free design
Key Insight
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Vivino is powerful but noisy; users don’t trust crowdsourced ratings for nuanced decisions
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CellarTracker is data-rich but inaccessible for newcomers
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Delectable leans on community but lacks expert-backed reliability
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All rely heavily on ads or upsells that break trust and disrupt flow
Beli
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Simple “I love this” interaction vs. star ratings
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Clear feed of personal history
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Social without pressure, degree of privacy
Letterboxd
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Helps people track experiences over time
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makes sharing feel expressive and personality driven
Instagram/Tiktok
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Visual first design cues
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Social behaviors based on taste, identity & discovery
Key Insights: These platforms helped inform
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A track-first, judgment-light journaling system
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Taste profile visualization
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A cleaner, modern feed experience
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Sharing that feels expressive, not evaluative
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“For You” discovery personalized by taste, not popularity
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A track-first, judgment-light journaling system
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Taste profile visualization
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A cleaner, modern feed experience
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Sharing that feels expressive, not evaluative
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“For You” discovery personalized by taste, not popularity
Users don’t want another traditional review app. They want something that matches the digital behaviors they already enjoy.
ITERATE, ITERATE, ITERATE.
Throughout the 12-week development cycle, I iterated on every core feature of the product (onboarding, scanning, discovery, taste profiling, navigation, and sharing) using a combination of usability tests, behavioral observations, and qualitative/quantitative feedback. Below are three representative examples that demonstrate how user behavior directly shaped the product and led to clearer, more intuitive experiences.
1. Prioritizing Scanning on the Home Screen (“Quick Scan”)
Problem Noticed:
During early usability sessions, I observed that most users opened the app with a single intention: to scan a bottle, shelf, or menu item immediately. However, the scan entry point was buried within a secondary tab, causing unnecessary friction at the very moment users needed speed and clarity.
Iteration:
I redesigned the home screen to make scanning the first, most prominent interaction by creating a “Quick Scan” button placed directly at the top of the home feed. After further iteration, based off user feedback / use cases, I aimed for this feature to became a one-tap experience, reducing cognitive load and aligning with real-world user behavior.
Impact:
Users reached scan results faster, the primary use case became intuitive, and onboarding felt more fluid for both new and returning users (so scanning action = routine)
2. Clarifying the App’s Value Through a Guided Walkthrough + App Store Graphics
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Problem Noticed:
Testing + user feedback revealed that users were often unclear about what WineFind does differently, especially compared to familiar apps like Vivino ("Why Winefind? Why should I trust this new app?"). This confusion extended to onboarding: users wanted to understand the value proposition before committing to exploring the app (via app store, website).
Iteration:
To address this, I created a cohesive set of app store graphics and an interactive walkthrough on the website that clearly articulated:
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What WineFind is
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What features it provides (Scan, Discover, Learn...)
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How the experience differs from existing tools; how it targets all points of the wine experience
I iterated repeatedly on tone, simplicity, and ordering of content to ensure consistency across all flows, emphasizing clarity, differentiation, and clear calls to action.
Impact:
Users reported stronger confidence in the product’s purpose (increased clarity), onboarding friction decreased, and conversion messaging became far more compelling for new audiences.
3. Solving the “Now What?” Moment in Restaurant Menu Scanning
Problem Noticed:
Scanning restaurant menus worked well, users could see critic-backed info for each bottle, but they struggled to locate the chosen wine on the physical menu afterward. In large wine lists, this created friction at the exact moment WineFind was meant to reduce decision anxiety.
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Iteration:
I added a “Find wine” feature to the wine detail screen, anchoring the selected wine to its exact position on the scanned menu. This visual locator closed the loop between digital discovery and real-world ordering.
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Impact:
Users moved seamlessly from scanning → evaluating → ordering. This reinforced WineFind’s core purpose: making real-time decision-making easier, not just more informed.
OUTCOME
By the end of the 12-week product cycle, I delivered a fully designed and validated MVP of WineFind; a unified, ad-free wine discovery app that combines professional critic reviews, accurate scanning technology, and a modern, user-first experience. The final product directly addressed the core pain points uncovered in research: fragmented discovery, lack of trustworthy information, difficulty remembering past wines, and high-pressure decision moments in stores and restaurants.
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The MVP included:
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A complete onboarding process
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Instant label + menu scanning with high-accuracy recognition
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Professional critic-backed wine summaries (scores, tasting notes, market prices)
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Personal tracking system for wines, notes, and taste history
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A personalized “For You” discovery feed based on evolving preferences
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A context-aware restaurant flow, including the “Where on the menu?” locator
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Clean, intuitive navigation built from a cohesive, scalable design system
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A sharing mechanism; graphics to post on instagram, share with friends
All flows were optimized through continuous user testing and iteration to ensure the experience felt equally approachable to beginners and valuable to enthusiasts.
The strength of the product vision, combined with a clear articulation of WineFind’s differentiated value, led to a breakthrough moment: James Suckling, one of the world’s leading wine critics, became a financial backer after seeing how WineFind democratizes access to expert-level wine knowledge.
Beyond the product itself, I also built the foundation of WineFind’s brand identity; designing the marketing site, shaping the social media strategy, and creating the visual + verbal language that positioned WineFind at the intersection of wine culture and technology.
The MVP established a strong platform for future development and validated the central hypothesis: when users are given expert guidance, accurate tools, and a intuitive, simple interface, they feel more confident in their wine decisions, and more connected to their own taste journey.
