Leading brand design agency, Moriarti, was brought on board by the Scotch Whisky Experience to create innovative interactive applications for the unique touch screen kiosks and iPad catalogues that would play a key part in the new retail experience. The team was tasked with creating an innovative and engaging concept that offered a varying degree of information, was easily navigated and user-friendly, offered 20 individual languages and could be content managed internally.
The company was introduced by Bright3D, with which the agency has worked on several cutting edge projects including the SHARP Solar Centre in Wrexham.
WHISKY SHOPPING GOES HIGH TECH
MIKE NEILL, MORIARTI DESIGN
We were commissioned to create an interactive shopping experience for visitors which will bring the whisky and history of Scotland’s distilleries to life.
The two touch screen kiosks form an integral part of the new retail experience and provide shoppers with an engaging guide to over 300 Scotch Whiskies. The application enables users to explore the distilleries alphabetically or via a regional map of Scotland.
In addition, visitors will be able to discover the various tour packages on offer at the Scotch Whisky Experience and find out about the restaurant, coffee shop and specialist whisky bar. The kiosks also include information about private whisky tastings, the whisky training school and private events.
Users can access the applications in a choice of 20 languages, reflecting the fact that over 75% of visitors to the Scotch Whisky Experience come from outside the UK. This is another area where web technology comes into its own, as it helps to render different character sets effectively and cut down on development and typesetting costs. This was quite a challenging area of the design; creating a single interface that offered the same experience across all the languages. For example, many languages do not use the Roman alphabet or numerical system, so we had to give a lot of consideration to usually quite basic tools like alphabetised navigation. Equally, some languages read text right to left which made a surprising impact on the layout and aesthetic design elements of the applications. Needless to say, this project was more complex than it may appear and certainly put our creativity and design expertise to the test!
We also created a bespoke application which will allow serious whisky connoisseurs to browse the shop’s choice of rare and luxury whiskies on iPads in the exclusive VIP area.
The team at Moriarti developed the applications using the latest web-based technologies (HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery) so that they can be viewed on both the kiosks and iPads. The beauty of this approach is that the applications can be viewed on any digital device with an internet connection and could easily be put online to be accessed more widely. The applications are based on content management systems, enabling the staff at Scotch Whisky Experience to easily update the content on all kiosks and devices through one portal, which was a key requirement in this project. Our team can also access the applications remotely, meaning that we can add new features and functionality at any time.