Laser Wolf


A Craft Beer Mobile App UX Case Study For A Popular Dive Bar

Empirical

Yes Beer, No Jerks

Tucked away in FatVillage, Downtown Fort Lauderdale’s creative enclave, lies a historic railway station which has been transformed into one of the greatest craft beer bars on the East Coast. Laser Wolf is a snug and artsy dive bar featuring an eclectic selection of craft beers, a rotating tap selection, wall-to-wall murals and artwork from local artists, plus music, B-rated horror movies, video games, food trucks and a charming courtyard to get away from the crowd.

Established in 2011, Laser Wolf’s founders, Chris and Jordan Bellus, envisioned a hip local hangout where friends and local patrons could gather to drink the finest and rarest crafted microbrews. But with an endlessly rotating inventory of craft beer, bar patrons are subjected to the daunting task of deciding what to drink, often having to improvise when their beer of choice is out of stock. While the prospect of trying new beers excites some, patrons with more particular tastes often rely on bartender recommendations to find comparable replacements.

My Project Roles

Project Manager

Project Manager

Content Strategist

Content Strategist

Researcher

Usability Researcher

Interaction Designer

Interaction Designer

Visual Designer

Visual Designer

Software Utilized

Sketch

Sketch

Invision

Invision

Adobe Photoshop

Photoshop

Adobe Illustrator

Illustrator

Adobe InDesign

InDesign

Adobe Acrobat

Acrobat

Apple

Apple

Apple

Apple

Android

Android

Project Initiation

Bark At The Moon

The opportunity to create a Laser Wolf mobile application presented itself as a solution to “digitally” serve bar patrons with beer information and ultimately, sell more alcoholic beverages. The Bellus brothers and I were aligned in our vision that we weren’t just designing a beer app, we were designing a better nightlife experience. If the Laser Wolf app had a human personality, it would be that of an intellectual beer snob and of a dive bar concierge service.

At inception, our goal was to create an app that correlated the fun of Untappd, with the quality beer profiles of Beeradvocate, and including the in-situ marketing and promotion of physical locations of the World Of Beer’s app. To ensure the success of the app, we needed to understand the motivations, pleasures, rewards, and preferences that fueled people’s engagement at the nexus of alcohol-focused entertainment and technology in an urban situation.

Chris Bellus, Co-Founder of The Laser Wolf Bar. Photo by Ian Witlen

The first thing I wanted to do before coming on board was to help define the scope of the project and curate the core narrative of the app. I anticipated UX challenges could arise with regards to:

  • User motivations and how patrons would interact with the interface
  • The impact that alcohol use might impose on utilizing key features of the app
  • The context of the environmental factors that may promote or impair adoption
  • The value of integrating social media channels with the app
A Dichotomy Of Purpose

From a macro level, I started to uncover a sort of duality in how the app would service bar patrons. I unpacked the concept of two roles that the Laser Wolf app would assume and categorized feature sets according to how they could best support those tasks.

The Alpha

As the Alpha, the Laser Wolf app serves a central resource, propagating requested content to bar patrons in the form of beer details, consumption history, event notifications, directions, etc.

  • Central resource for publishing content, sending notifications and updating profile settings
  • Unidirectional communication
  • Success relies on buy-in from bar patrons, must demonstrate a value of service and meet user preferences and expectations
  • Motivated by seeking information regarding beers, or other associated content regarding the bar
  • Mostly driven by positive-task orientation

The Pack

Additionally, the Laser Wolf app supports the notion of “pack mentality,” where users are connected into a shared experience through social media channels, custom notifications, and photo sharing.

  • Communally resourced amongst app users and bar patrons
  • Omnidirectional dispersion of communication
  • Hinges on the promotion of user activities and conversations among bar patrons
  • Motivated by posting images and statements referencing their drinking
  • Can alternate between positive and negative task orientations

Bartenders go into great detail about the beers on draft but have gaps in their knowledge when it comes to some of the bottles and cans. Sometimes my beer is the one at the back of the cooler that no one picks.

— Anonymous Laser Wolf Bar Patron


Devising A Proto-Persona

As a designer, I wanted to advocate for the end user. But before jumping into extensive research, I formalized a list of assumptions that provided me with a best guess of who will be using our product. Creating a proto-persona helped me formalize an idea around the user that could be progressively elaborated through research to validate my assumptions.1

Research & Discovery

Synergic Insight

I leapt into the proverbial rabbit hole of research in pursuit of procuring synergic insight by drawing connections based on the synthesis of scientific analytic insights and developing an understanding of the problem by contextualizing the user’s objective, assumptions, and domain knowledge (both explicit and tacit knowledge), heuristics, or logical reasoning.2

I conducted customer and market research to drive the planning phase of the Laser Wolf app project, and utilized knowledge elicitation techniques to gain understanding of mobile usage contexts and patterns, in the areas of human computer interaction and the ergonomics of device design.

Statistics in Gender Differences

Exploring Avenues of Addiction

The topic of alcohol addiction exceeded the breadth and scope of this project. In this case, alcohol consumption was merely an actor or an outlier to key motivations that influenced addictive behavior related to how Laser Wolf bar patrons interacted with friends, strangers, and with mobile technology, to determine or identify opportunities where the Laser Wolf app could play a role.

I wasn’t concerned with why people drank as much as I wanted to examine the emotional attachment to mobile phone technology usage and its connection to drinking behavioral patterns. I wanted to diagnose the intoxigenic social identity and consider how interacting with the app would be impacted by intoxication and episodic heavy drinking. And to explore the involvement of social networking in promoting a dependence towards mobile phone use and the consumption of alcohol.

Addiction to Phone Technology

The causes of mobile attachment and problematic mobile phone use is generally conceptualized as a behavioral addiction, motivated by poor impulse control, resulting in uncontrolled urges that can lead to addictive, antisocial, and/ or risky patterns of use. Addicted users spend twice as much time on their phone and launch applications much more frequently (nearly twice as often) as compared to the non-addicted user.5

Survey-based research has shown that many respondents would give up brushing their teeth, having sex, exercising, wearing shoes, showering, and eating chocolate instead of living without their iPhone for the same period of time.6

When users feel self-connected or socially connected with mobile applications, they show not only more supportive words-of-mouth for the mobile applications, but also higher self-efficacy and higher life satisfaction overall,7 which can lead to consistent app engagement.

Addiction to Extraversion

Individuals who self identify as being highly social will respond differentially to alcohol consumption and technology usage patterns according to their level of extraversion. Extraverts show higher rates of heavy drinking than do introverted individuals, proposing that alcohol enhances their mood by increasing the salience of pleasurable social stimuli in the drinker’s immediate environment.8

Driven by a strong and constant desire to communicate with others and to establish new relationships, extraverts participate in sensation seeking activities that promote pleasure and excitement like sharing pictures of having a great time drinking with friends, or looking for alternative means to meet the amount of stimulation they need, like using text messaging to encourage friends to meet up at the bar.9

Addiction to Social Media

Social Networking Systems (SNS) may play a major role in maintaining pro-alcohol environments. At the center of mobile technology attachment and extraverted addictive behavior, SNS provide a means to support the aforementioned activities. Driven by the necessity to maintain relationships and obtain reassurance from others, some individuals use the mobile device excessively to obtain reassurance in affective relationships on sites like Facebook and Instagram.10

The emergence of intoxigenic digital spaces has been identified as a key effect of some user-generated social media activity. A globalized culture of celebrity, self-commodification, and consumption, is a key outcome of enacting one’ s own celebrity brand.11 The sheer volume of alcohol references found in user profiles on social networking sites, not just relating to particular brands but drinking behaviors more generally, positions the Laser Wolf app to correlate the impact of systematic social media use with respect to their alcohol preferences and consumption.

The digital environment thus provides a platform of exposure for the Laser Wolf app whereby the supposed virtues of drinking are regularly communicated by patrons, leading to the further normalization of (excessive) alcohol consumption,13 which in turn increases the likelihood of users routinizing their visits to the dive bar.

Furthermore there is increasing evidence that a key predictor of consumption is the perception that friends drink routinely. Social media marketing can both reinforce social norms and over-represent pro-alcohol attitudes among fans, followers and their peers.14

ON THE PROWL

For many people, consuming alcohol is inherently a social activity which typically happens outside the home environment in pubs, bars, and nightclubs. Before diving into specific app features and investing resources into the overall user experience, I wanted to obtain a personal accounting of how bar patrons were using their mobile devices while drinking at the Laser Wolf and classify the modest drinking behaviors of young adults in a real nightlife setting.

To access prospective users, I decided to conduct a field research study and spent a week at the Laser Wolf observing the natural behaviors of people drinking. I examined the habitual checking behaviors of mobile phones and measured how frequently the attention was switched to and away from the device, while participating in the turn-taking practices of social interaction, responding to friends and strangers, or speaking to the bartender.

Validating Persona Assumptions

Based on the research found in the discovery period of the project, my original proto-persona was creatively embellished into two distinct personalities, Gryff and Cora, who would provide a face and personality for me to design for. A failure to authenticate my previous assumptions could introduce difficulty in delivering a useful product to market.

Eliciting alcoholic consumption preferences, mental categorization impressions, and distinguishing technology usage patterns allowed me to brainstorm the necessary features and opportunities required for bar patrons to successfully navigate through the app.

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Planning & Wireframing

Mobile Blueprints For UX Engineering

Successful UX design comes from the strategic approach of validating user research and addressing perceived usability concerns. Keeping Gryff and Cora in mind, I mapped their user behavioral preferences and drinking motivations to goals that would influence using the app. Taking a moment to empathize with bar patrons helped me to understand and identify the context-of-use, emotional persuasion, end goals, and intrinsic motivations that affect user interaction on their mobile devices.

Simplicity was at the heart of my engineering intentions regarding the interface. Addressing users indulging in alcoholic drinking activities required a level of guidance and obviousness matched to that of designing for children. I hypothesized the priority of curated content would be different than our competitors because the Laser Wolf app was both a universal guide for learning about craft beer, as well as a marketing tool for a brick-and-mortar location.

You’ve got to keep your finger on the pulse of what your audience is thinking and know what they’ll accept from you.

— Dwayne Johnson


  • Find Beer! The Laser Wolf app exists to support the consumption, education, and sale of alcoholic beverages.
  • Successful proliferation of the app relies on the patron’s perception of value, its ease of use and usefulness.
  • Navigation must be minimal and simple, inebriated patrons need easy access to desired tasks.
  • Serve as a marketing tool for special/ limited releases, tap takeovers, events, new breweries, notifications, and the sale of ad space down the road.
  • Beer check ins, Beer Badges and Random Pick are forms of gamification to lighten and add entertainment to the experience.
  • Reinforce nightlife as an enjoyable past time by allowing attendees to share their experiences, check ins, and photo sharing activity on social media.
Attentional Deficits In A Bar Setting

Mobility tasks compete for cognitive resources with other tasks, including mobile HCI tasks. The most important tasks are given higher priority with left-over resources being re-distributed.15 Mobile devices reserve our physical and attentional capabilities from other tasks required for mobility. They need to “make a place” for the device in a taxing situation.

There is often a conflict between mobility and mobile HCI. Interacting with a mobile device, as a task, competes for the same limited resources that we need to safely navigate through the environment.16 The deployment of attention is dependent not only on the mobile situation, but on the characteristics of the UI, the main task, and the user’s exceptions about them.17

Conversing at a dive bar — a task that does not require body movement except for what is needed to drink beer, gesture to support talking, to monitor social surroundings and personal space, and perhaps the occasional trip to the restroom. The situation does require attending to the other person, could be a bartender, a friend, group of coworkers or strangers, and includes inferring, making sense, and responding in a turn-taking manner. It demands more of our higher-level cognitive faculties such as long term memory and thought than visual attention.

Consequence of Blurred Vision

The prevailing intoxigenic environment and alcogenic culture meant that the Laser Wolf app exposed a unique deviation from typical UX engineering. The polarizing state-of-mind of soberness and inebriation, meant that a third persona would emerge. The persona of the “functionally drunk” required further consideration with regards to the differences or the deterioration in availability of attention for interaction.

While the emergent personality is merely an unrepressed version of the previously defined personas, the loss of physical and mental faculties would play a significant role in attentional resource fragmentation.

In my approach I decomposed the challenge into positive and negative task orientations and found that at the moment “the buzz” starts to set in, a transformation occurs where the user is ferried from focusing on using the beer guide to search for beers, read through beer details, update their profiles, and review their checked in beer lists, to dispassionately browse the app to pass time while switching back and forth between the app and social media.

It is also perceived that with the latter, the user is more receptive to alcoholic marketing, becoming more impactful with increased intoxication. But with increased intoxication also comes a shift away from continuous attention in using the app and a resistance to expanding effort and concentration to solve things.18 Where functional drunks may still reach for their devices, it is unknown if they would return to instantiate the Laser Wolf application explicitly.

Scribbling On Cocktail Napkins

Putting pen to paper, I started to sketch all the concepts and features behind the Laser Wolf app, using low fidelity wireframes and ideating on content, features, and user interactions instead of wrangling over fine details. Ultimately, we could append UI and design elements later in the process, what was of greatest importance for me was to draw conclusions about perceived usability.

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Users are becoming less willing to interact with difficult or uncomfortable interfaces. Therefore, high usability is warranted, but it does not magically appear.19 A focus on making the interaction between users and software more seamless and as effortless as possible supports both the sober and intoxicated user.

No Burger Menus

What you will not find on the Laser Wolf app is the conventional hamburger navigation icon found on most mobile apps. In meetings with the Bellus brothers and other stakeholders, we opted to strive for a simpler and more accessible solution where the main navigation would be omnipresent and concise to support the very basic, most effortless navigation processes.

Taking into account how increased intoxication could impair the user’s ability to make cognitive decisions, we were resolved to limiting the navigational items to five branches in order to properly serve bar patrons. There was neither a desire, a necessity, nor a budget to turn the app into a large scale enterprise solution.

A simple navigation structure supports uncomplicated access to content for those under the influence

Progression To High Fidelity Engineering

By evaluating the flow of the key tasks, I aggregated and conceptualized core activities by creating functional specifications, high fidelity wireframes, and prototypes to ensure a seamless process from all perspectives of the user experience. Producing box wires constituted a foundation for validating design concepts aimed to develop meaningful interactions between patrons and the Laser Wolf app.

Find, Learn & Drink

At the core of the app we felt that “finding beer” was the primary and root task behind the users’ motivation. There was a relevance for bar patrons to keep up with the perpetually rotating draft/ bottle selection at Laser Wolf and an inclination to curb the dependence on bartender recommendations, feeling empowerment from autonomously searching for the right beer.

Having deeply investigated a primary motivation for patrons to use the app, I invested more effort into the development of the Beer Guide, focusing on interaction with regards to how the user would find beer, how beer would be presented and how much detail would be available above-the-fold over the layouts of other supplemental screens. I wanted to line-up my solutions to unequivocally match user expectations and meet their preferences.

It’s not easy being drunk all the time. If it were easy, everyone would do it.

— Tyrion Lannister, House of Lannister


Three ways to find beers using the Beer Guide:

  • Access the contextual search input field to enter key terms and phrases to find beer titles, brewery names, beer styles, etc.
  • Browse Laser Wolf’s beer inventory categorically by beer body style (ex. IPAs, ambers, stouts, etc.)
  • Run the Random Pick feature on the app to shake the phone to redeem an indiscriminate beer selection.

Executing Design

Aesthetic Intoxication

I wanted to create an aesthetic that would transfigure the physical experience of sitting at the Laser Wolf into a connected technology experience. To capture the vision of the application, segments of the discovery process were translated into actionable insights which lay the foundation for initiating the visual design phase of the project.

I led the design for all aspects relating to layout, color, typography and consistency, with an emphasis on functional design and content integration (navigational elements, images, and text). I subscribed to the idea that while the content was important, the “look and feel” was equally an essential aspect of the GUI quality that is impacted by several factors such as aesthetics, pleasurability, fun, etc. to encourage user interaction.20

Low Luminance Design

In the aphotic context of a dive bar environment, overcompensating for frequent changes in pupil dilation needed to be considered with respect to the negative impact that glaring mobile screens may have on bar patrons. An important aspect in the process of digital display design is the determination regarding display polarity.

The decision to pursue a dark thematic approach, or reversed polarity condition, was driven by two strong assumptions. First, that typically, users would be accessing the app while frequenting the bar. Secondly, the primary target audience would be under the age of fifty, resembling that of Laser Wolf’s currently regular crowd.

By designing in reversed polarity, users avoid having to adjust their vision between a bright screen and a darker environment, leading to less eye strain. It would not be sufficient to simply design the app using light text on a dark background, I needed to consider the overall brightness of the UI and graphical elements respectfully in order to avoid subjecting user to visual fatigue.

When the lights dim, the movie, not the theater, becomes the experience.

— Michelle Kadir, Director of Product Development at Spotify


A reversed polarity advantage was expected for younger adults,21 that could perceive the legibility of light text on dark backgrounds to be preferable and gentler on the eyes. Additionally, with the application of a darker theme, the emphasis is shifted to the main content, and the background offers less distractions. Users can immerse themselves into the activity and enjoy vivid colors on a whole new level.22

Relevance Runs Red

The incorporation of the red tonal highlights juxtaposed over the elegant, darker artifacts conveyed an overall impression of objectively being inside the Laser Wolf. At the bar. Having a drink. Borrowing from the burgundy red color that adorns the inside of the iconic triangular building imparted a connected experience, adhering to the look and feel of the establishment.

The application of red as the contrasting color for the header, the call-to-actions and UI elements was used to support users by providing a disparity between actionable components versus static visual design graphics. This helped to communicate a difference in purpose between the content and functionality to reinforce the mobile interactions.

With consideration to the vast inventory of beer choices, I envisioned a color palette likened to a Pantone book of swatches matching specifically the different beer styles ranging from the lightest blonde ale to the thickest and darkest stout.

Alcoholic Lycanthropic Iconography

The highly recognizable Laser Wolf logo, designed by local artist Eric Arenas, could be seen affixed to the rear windows of vehicles all across town in Fort Lauderdale. While I am an avid fan of the design, I found the detail embedded in the official logo was too intricate to translate properly at smaller sizes for mobile media screens. This required a new and simpler approach towards creating an iconic app logo.

The use of the wolf and the beer cap icon evoked a sense of cohesion to the overall design. I imagined how the cap could represent a bottle of beer that has been opened to enjoy. And the craft beer, like that of the full moon, takes on the transformative nature of bringing our wild, carousing inner selves to the surface and to the party, associating that experience to a night out of drinking at Laser Wolf.

A mock up demonstrating how the iconic logo may appear in the Apple App Store.

Icons would play an integral role in the Laser Wolf app feature to “Search by Beer Style,” providing the user with a clean and uncluttered interface of beer style categories to easily choose from. I felt like this was an area where icons were needed to simplify the categorical options.

Positioning textual labels adjacent to the icons supported users who were under the influence to easily make a selections based on the type of beer they wanted to drink.

Beer Color Meter

Beer color profoundly influences our perceptions, not just of style, but of flavor by communicating to the drinker how a given beer is “supposed” to taste.23 Besides hinting at the flavor and style of the beer, the color of beer is aesthetically pleasing. An iconic visual representation of a beer color meter authenticated the users supposition and provides a UI element that is easily decipherable and supports landing the user on a superior beer of choice.

Visual Design

Designing for mobile illustrated exciting challenges and big opportunities, striking a balance between well-established conventions (simple contextual search methods, prominent CTA’s, profile setting controls, etc.), consistency, (creating persistent color usage, invariable presentation of actions, eliminating confusion, etc.), and innovation, (use of beer product imagery, social notifications, motion-sensing gamification, etc.).

Innovative thinking and creativity helped me explore new ways of looking at these challenges, and allowed me to continue to find new, beautiful, and usable solutions. Design principles and content prioritization helped to create visibility into the decision-making process, maintaining a harmonious disposition of content, UI elements, fonts, styles, and colors that needed to be homogeneous at every touch point.

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On Tap: Effective Alcoholic Advertising

The design of the On Tap screen deviates slightly from the beer details layout in the sense that an image of a cold, frothy beer in a glass is a depicted adjacent to its corresponding beer label. The pervasive use of product imagery in alcohol marketing needed to encode the necessary emotional reaction that elicits the impulse of thirst for a cold beer.

Corona’s relaxed, sun-drenched marketing campaign has worked to perfection, creating soaring profits.24

The power of persuasive imagery isn’t sourced from the digital pixels themselves but in the real world experiences they recall or evoke. Evidence that exposure to alcohol marketing increases consumption, one in which contextual factors impact behavior, include perceived norms and levels of active engagement with marketing stimuli.25

To determine whether or not there is an opportunity to make a meaningful impact with beer imagery, I deferred to conclusions from my competitive analysis research which revealed that top-rated craft beer apps fail at marketing alcoholic products with imagery. Because minimalist design involves stripping away elements that are unnecessary, the beer glass is striking and becomes the strong focal area.26

In a side-by-side comparison, the contrast, color, and alluring appeal of the Laser Wolf app clearly emerges.

I felt that it was essential to create a compelling, straightforward, and more enjoyable way to showcase what was available on draft bar patrons. More importantly, I needed simplify the process of browsing, choosing, and ordering a beer for the “Frank The Tank” personality. A knowledge elicitation technique I used to brainstorm ideas was inspired by the Think, Do, Feel approach27 to imagine how mobile gestures could be a solution.

Considering that Laser Wolf had about nine tap heads available to serve draft beer, I decided to pursue presenting the On Tap screens by utilizing mobile gestures in the UI design. Focusing on quick, lightweight actions was the best experience for Laser Wolf patrons of all levels of inebriation. The reward for going through informational imagery of beer when on the verge of intoxicated bliss, would then be the ability to swipe, discover and purchase craft beer.

The advantages from the information architecture and design layout of the On Tap screen:

  • Creates an overall look that’s simple, engaging, and evokes an appetite and sense of impetuousness to order and consume more beer.
  • Presents beer styles in full color which allows bar patrons to infer the richness, fullness and weight of the beer, and predict the taste in most cases.
  • Eliminates surprises by forecasting how the craft beer will be served to the patron amidst a variety of recommended glassware styles.
  • Allows the user to easily browse through beer choices available on tap using a simple mobile gesture UI.
  • Educates the user on specific beer details to support making an informed selection before approaching the bar.
Random Pick

In brainstorming blue sky opportunities, I introduced the idea of a third and more entertaining way of discovering new beers – the Random Pick. Intended for the adventurous drinker, the Random Pick introduced a meme of gamification to the experience that helped us crystallize what our differentiation was with our competition.

By utilizing the motion sensing gyroscope capabilities found on most popular brands of smart phones today, the user would be prompted to physically tilt, shake, spin or wave their phones to instantiate a script that would ultimately pick a beer at random.

To illustrate my concept to developers, I devised a logic chart for the Random Pick function, diagramming exactly how I envisioned the technical process would be expedited.

Badges Of Honor

The concept of Beer Badges, a formidable feature introduced by the Untappd app, was of interest to the Laser Wolf founders. Badges are meant to mark drinking milestones. As users enthusiastically record the trials of their alcohol consumption, they could unwittingly unlock badges of honor. Like earning a Level-Up in your favorite video game, this alcogenic reward system introduced another gamification element to the app.

The congratulatory nature of this reward system encourages users to consume more alcoholic beverages in pursuit of discovering what the next secret reward may be. The badges uncover deeper insight into the users’ drinking habits, often surmising styles of beer, brewery preferences or distinct flavors that the user might unknowingly have been drinking. Furthermore, Beer Badges facilitate the users’ need to promote their drinking triumphs through social media networks.

CREATING ALCOHOLIC AMBASSADORS

Favorable comments and images about alcohol experiences from users on sites like Facebook and Snapchat mean that they act as unofficial brand ambassadors, “real” consumers indicating their approval of the product. As the boundaries between what actually constitutes online alcohol advertising and social interaction are increasingly hazy, the line between advertising the bar and the craft beer it sells versus user-generated content is almost completely blurred.28

Conversation-generating strategies seek to embed alcohol-branded activities in the daily lives of fans and followers. Exposure and increased demographic reach on social networking sites supports the synchronous proliferation of both the dive bar and the app to Fort Lauderdale local residents and keeps past memorable experiences in the conscience of the user.

The Laser Wolf app would facilitate marketing exposure for the smaller craft beer brands, allowing users to share posts on their SNS channel. By taking advantage of digital alcohol marketing exploits social media can be conceptualized as adding to the reach, speed and efficiency with which pro-alcohol messages are spread and entrenched as norms and practices among peer groups.29

Drinking And Social Responsibility

I conceptualized a feature that users could enable on the Laser Wolf app to receive conversational notifications inquiring if the patron was in need of hailing an Uber. In an effort to curb traffic related incidents after visiting the Laser Wolf, monitoring a patron’s fitness-to-drive could be achieved by measuring different behavioral criteria while at the bar, pushing concerted message notifications to the user’s device to dissuade drinkers from getting behind the wheel of a car after drinking.

By integrating the app with the bar’s point-of-sale system, auditing measures could be implemented to examine if the patron’s alcohol consumption warrants a recommendation to facilitate a ride. The service would not replace the traditional responsibilities of bartenders to estimate a patron’s fitness-to-drive but provides auxiliary and suggestive means to safe ride services.

Precedents for pushing ride notifications could be measured by:


Amount of Alcohol Consumed
Instigated by calculating the number of drinks consumed by the strength of the beers themselves, determined by the drink’s ABV (alcohol by volume) index.


Tabulating Drink Charges
The bar’s point-of-sale system could trigger push notifications as drink charges are furnished to the patron’s bar tab.


Time Spent at Laser Wolf
Utilizing geo-targeting services, the users mobile device may be surveyed to disclose the mount of time spent at the Laser Wolf.

Selected Works From The Creative Lab