Demystifying Kombucha With Mobile Technology

Project at a glance

Kombucha is a fermented, effervescent, tea with many purported health benefits, often flavored with juice, fruit and herbs. Home brewers make kombucha by fermenting sugared tea with a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast or SCOBY. Brewing kombucha comes with some mystery and even danger. (Exploding fermentations! Toxic mold!) There’s so much that’s unknown for beginners. I wanted to simplify the learning process to bring all the vital information into one central place.

Concept Overview

I first learned about Kombucha before you could buy it in stores or order a SCOBY online, when kombucha brewers were like a secret society, passing along tattered, stained hand-written recipes along with the precious starter tea and SCOBY.

With the increased popularity of kombucha, the emergence of home brew supply stores and an abundance of blogs each with their own recipes, terminology and process, I wondered if there would be a demand for an app that could bring all those resources into one place for kombucha brewers. Could I combine those recipes and steps with a tracking feature to time fermentations and an online community of brewers to share and answer each other’s questions.

Initial Research

Through five guided storytelling sessions with long-time brewers and analysis of comparable apps, I identified what I believed would be the most desirable features for a tracking and recipe app for kombucha brewers. I created feature cards and surveyed a larger group of brewers at all levels of experience. I was surprised to learn that a social element - something I thought would be an essential feature, was identified as either indifferently rated, or even unwanted.

Concept Development

With these results, I re-focused my design on only the most desired features to create a clean, simple aesthetic to appeal to the target audience, allowing beginning users to access the foundational information they need to start a kombucha brewing practice, while also functioning as a streamlined tool, allowing beginning and advanced users alike to have easy access to tracking functions and recipes.

From my research I identified three proto-personas as users for this app, that I named YouBucha. With YouBucha, the beginning kombucha brewer will be able to get simple, clear instructions for the basic base tea, a list of essential supplies, as well as a method to create their own SCOBY, something some of my users didn’t realize they could do. Intermediate and advanced brewers can track multiple batches at a time and keep a record of the recipes they’ve tried and how they’ve turned out and save them to either try again, or avoid. The adventurous brewer can try out new and exciting recipes for flavoring their Kombucha and get answers to the age old question - what do I do with all these SCOBYS?

Usability Testing

To evaluate my designs, I conducted 6 remote, think-aloud usability testing sessions on the prototypes. First, I asked testers to complete three task flows on the app and noted any confusion or indecision they displayed while navigating through the tasks. I then surveyed each tester using the System Usability Scale (SUS) to get a clearer picture of how the app performed for them. After compiling the data from the testing and scoring according to the SUS scale the prototypes were rated at 76.

I then made minor alterations to the prototypes, such as re-ordering the navigation tabs at the bottom of the screen and adding a welcome message to the home screen for new users.

Future iterations of this app could incorporate additional content, tips and techniques. But I’m still really curious if a social aspect of the app would be useful for troubleshooting and sharing recipes. Given more time, I’d like to re-introduce a simplified social forum and test it again within the context of the app to understand if users would find it a useful addition.

Project Outcome

Granted, Kombucha’s not for everyone, but enthusiasts appreciate the fascinating science behind it, and brewing your own can be a rewarding hobby. Together with Kombucha’s recent wider popularity, I believe this app could encourage new hobbyist brewers and give them the confidence to pursue the perfect brew.

I designed an app to allow beginning Kombucha brewers to access the foundational information they need to start a kombucha brewing practice, while also functioning as a streamlined tool, allowing beginning and advanced users alike to have easy access to tracking functions and recipes.