Zenie Bottle
The Zenie Bottle project started when the Zuzingo team walked into our offices, placed a interesting looking bottle on the table, and stated that they’d like to build a web experience around that bottle. The target would be mid teens to early 20s and the website would be a place to both buy bottles and to create “virtual bottles”. Virtual bottles would be online representations of the purchased bottle that would include any sort of message the bottle owner wished.
From there, we brought Zuzingo through a “Scope Discovery” project to help better define the project, target demographic, and features that would be intriguing to their audience. Over several meetings, we had reached a consensus on the strategy of ZenieBottle.com.
Our first assignment was to create the Zenie Bottle brand. Using the information collected during the Scope Discovery project, we produced several options for the Zenie Bottle logo.
We landing on an icon that represented the Zenie Avatars that would soon be incorporated into the site. The swirls placed inside the bottle refer to the various items that can be placed within the “virtual bottle.” A clean and fun logo font treatment was created featuring the word “zenie.”
From there we created a simple system for tracking scope updates and deletions using notecards and a whiteboard. As we continuously updated the board, we worked through the back-end and front-end information architecture and wireframes. After several rounds of reviews of information architecture we were ready for design.
We brought Zuzingo through several rounds of design reviews before landing on the final direction. Our main objective was to entice users to explore the site right from the homepage by showcasing virtual bottles. Once hooked, we offer information on how a user can obtain their OWN Zenie Bottle.
As we worked through design, we were also developing the user interface. It was agreed that a key part of this project would be an engaging user experience both in creating virtual bottles for the world to see AND in viewing those bottles.
We created a rich AJAX application for building your own virtual bottle. It allows a user to add YouTube videos, photos from their desktop, photos from Flickr, messages, text messages from their cell phone, music, scenes, and charms with just a few clicks.
We used Flash to create an extremely rich experience when a bottle is opened. Items placed inside the bottle float down the screen and can be clicked on to be brought into focus.
We also added in the ability to add comments, embed bottles as widgets on other sites like MySpace, and to rate bottles.
There’s plenty more to explore in terms of features and what users have created at Zenie Bottle.com. We invite you to visit Zenie Bottle.com today and check it out for yourself! This was a challenging, fun, and incredibly rewarding project to be a part of.
You can also view our podcast which showcases Zenie Bottle here.
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