The Coffee Guide
Discover the best cafes and roasters with the Coffee Guide
Background
Inspired by the growing specialty coffee craze, I set out to come up with a way to bring these users and stakeholders together, define what specialty coffee is and produce a platform to catalogue the backbone and shared hub for coffee lovers alike… The humble coffee shop.
Goal
Creating an end-to-end application that hosts a large data base of coffee shops that can help users locate their ideal coffee shop by informing them what they can expect.
Problem
With so many cafes to choose from, the discerning coffee consumer can be overwhelmed or frustrated trying to locate a specialty coffee shop
My impact
This application will bring clarity to the specialty coffee community and equip users with information that was previously challenging to obtain.
Empathise
Goals
To find out if there is a universally understood measure of quality for coffee drinkers.
What are the user’s motivations behind using specific cafes.
What resources user’s currently have to inform their decision-making.
What user’s feelings are towards loyalty programs.
Methodology
Competitive analysis
I wanted to explore existing coffee guide applications to see what problems they address along with how they benchmark cafes for a quality score. I discovered that none of them were up to date with the coming and goings of cafes. All apps offer free content (no premium version) however most are plastered with advertising that creates confusion and at times takes over as a primary function to try to sell product.
Green = Includes feature. Red = Missing feature
User interview target demographic
Objectives: To gain insight into the target users wants, needs, goals and pain points.
To understand my user better, I began with setting up a few interviews to gather some qualitative data. To find willing participants to interview, I located the ‘r/Coffee’ Reddit group along with ‘Specialty Coffee UK’ and ‘Home Espresso Aficionados’ groups on Facebook.
Target demographic:
User interview findings
I was surprised to learn of the wide range of makeshift solutions by users. This behaviour including cross-referencing forum recommendations with google images and reviews displays a lack of trust towards sources.
This is supported by the range of expectations for a ‘good coffee’. Some users consider a good coffee to be attributed to the ambiance of the cafe. Other users feel quite the opposite and base a ‘good coffee’ solely on the quality of the drink (coffee beans used, craft of making).
Interview results split by the questions asked.
Quantitative data analysis
I initially extracted the quantitative data from the interview. I chose to show the visualisation of this data through pie charts. A key points I have taken and want to develop further is the challenge users have with locating a cafe.
Quantitative data from the user interview visualised in pie charts
Qualitative data analysis
I collated the qualitative data taken from the user interview using the card sorting method. This visualised and categorically arranged findings from the interview data can now be used to highlight insights and opportunities to take forward.
Categorically arranged / card sorted qualitative interview findings.
Key insights
These insights are key elements to reflect on throughout the design process and should be explored further.
Key insight gathered throughout research.
Define
An understanding of quality
A reoccurring finding in the interviews was a mixed perception of quality. Throughout further research, I found a universally recognised benchmark of quality.
80+ SCA Points
(Specialty Coffee Association)
What are SCA points?
SCA are a worldwide body of coffee tasting experts
They rate coffee on a scale of 1-100 in a process called cupping
Coffee's scoring 80+ points are considered to be 'specialty'
User persona
After I compiled all the data from the user interviews, I was able to organise the data into an affinity diagram. Using the affinity diagram, I produced 3 personas.
User personas informed by the findings of the user interviews.
User journey map
By creating and exploring the journey maps of my personas, I uncovered problems and opportunities that The Coffee Guide needed to address.
User journey map used to discover nuance moments in the users experience.
POV Statements
The app needs clarification on the available amenities because many users have dietary requirements that will restrict what they can consume. Having this information will avoid disappointment and embarrassment.
Some user need to know if the coffee shop has seating space in order to know if they can sit for a few hours to work before trying numerous cafes without any space.
The target market and specialty coffee community need a source of verified and trusted reviews from likeminded users because they don't trust the wide range of reviews on large public forums such as Google and Trip Advisor.
POV statements framing key insights and provoking further exploration.
Ideate
Web flow
This site map guided by the user interviews shows the three key task flows that the prototype will focus on: 1, Onboarding and sign-up. 2, Landing and navigation. 3, Search related functions.
Site map informed by user interviews. A start to identifying key tasks in FigJam.
Wireframe
This site map guided by the user interviews shows the three key task flows that the prototype will focus on: 1, Onboarding and sign-up. 2, Landing and navigation. 3, Search related functions.
Prototype
Information architecture
I have put together a more comprehensive site map showing the layout and pattern for app pages by ensuring only the necessary pages are accessible to declutter and reduce the total number of pages / interactions.
Comprehensive site map information architecture.
Low-fidelity prototyping
Through various rounds of low-fidelity prototype testing I was able to understand how users expected to complete the tasks I was focusing on. By studying their interaction with my prototypes I could see were a swipe gesture might not be an intuitive action. This led to changing the way gestures were to be used and equipping the prototype with an introductory ‘tool kit’ to familiarize the users with the flow of the prototype.
Low-fidelity prototype of The Coffee Guide.
High-fidelity prototype
The high-fidelity prototype has been successful in enabling users to navigate more intuitively, the realistic look did bring up some questions / issues with operation of the system.
The following questions arose:
How would the application remain up to date with all new cafes?
Would the rating system and addition of new cafes be updated by the users or the developers?
Could new cafes be added by the community through a system of suggesting / upvoting?
Would the app be free to use? if not, how will it stay functional?
Try the prototype!
Ui Kit
I created the UI kit for The Coffee Guide to cover all aspects of the brand (product, marketing and more). I wanted The Coffee Guides visual design to be, minimal and visually familiar / comfortable for users. I wanted to combine a feeling of being in a bright welcoming coffee shop with a minimal design that we have become accustomed to seeing within navigation and information applications.
Ui kit for The Coffee Guide
Conclusion
While working on this project I learned to trust the research and interview process. I began working with a rather different assumption and initial idea how to solve the problem. I learned not to get too hung up on the solution and be flexible in ways of solving different individual problems. It’s great to have the general ideas to take the first step when starting a project however when I built on that with primary and secondary research the project evolved much further. Creating a virtual guide can be worked on more in the future with more time and resources.