Introduction

This mobile app encompassed my whole course project with Careerfoundry. I was able to create an app from inspiration to exposition following the design thinking framework.

Overview

Coffeine is a subscription and learning app targeted towards coffee enthusiasts from beginner to expert.

Project Brief-Coffee Subscription-v2

Last modified by Jessica Kostenko 5 years ago

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Project & Context

This was a course project of my own choosing for the UX Immersion segment of the Careerfoundry program. I was able to simultaneously dive into UX techniques and implement them in a hands on product from research to design to presentation.

Objective

By learning and using the Design Thinking process, I aimed to identify the type of users, their current pain points and needs for a coffee subscription app.

While putting my newly gained UX skills to work I was able to identify the gap in the market of coffee subscription apps.

Inspiration | Understand & Observe

Define the Problem

Possible Problems

• The quizzes that are offered to be taken by the potential subscriber now are good on the preliminary front but there doesn't seem to be a follow-up quiz post coffee selection consumption to tailor the next selected coffee even more for the subscriber. This engages the potential that people’s palettes may change over time.
• The information about the coffees and origins are very limited and broad. For those who don’t know much about coffee or want to learn more, there is a cap to what they can access through current coffee subscription platforms.
• There isn’t enough variety or inclusion spread across various subscription sites. A lot of them have overlap and repeat the same featured roasters.

Potential Solutions

• Creating a mobile app for a coffee subscription service presents an avenue for more immediate accessibility when on-the-go especially if coffee shoppers are interacting with friends in-person or via text and want to save a recommended coffee roaster and not have to wait to download a website via desktop or on mobile phone.
• Formulate a quiz not just for the initial subscription but follow-up quizzes and questions that probe the coffee shopper to examine and reflect on their experience and what they have tried and point them towards roasts and information that can help them see the big picture. This is a solution to the fact that people’s palettes can change and mature over time.
• An app that allows coffee enthusiasts to dive deeper into the origins of coffee from bean to their cup. Resources that are offered on the platform are interactive and cross referenced from notable coffee experts and crowdsourced from other users that have also interacted on the app (i.e., reviews). These will be broken down into guides that are free and accessible within the app for the user before, during, or after their initial subscription experience. The interface will be immersive and organized in such a way that is easy to navigate.
• To include newer and niche roasters, comprehensive research can be done on the current micro roaster market. New companies can be discovered through blogs and YouTube videos. Prove that a platform like this subscription service can be beneficial and cost-effective for these small businesses to get recognition in the coffee community.

Problem Statement

Our coffee subscribers need a way to learn more about the coffee that they are purchasing because they wish to not only taste new coffees but also know more about them. We will know this to be true when we see how many coffee shoppers are using our app to discover new coffees in their consecutive subscription cycles.

Competitive Analysis

Skills & Tools:

• Research, Compare/Contrast, SWOT Profile

Learnings

• I was able to analyze 2 companies: Angels' Cup & MistoBox
• Key takeaways: neither of these companies had mobile apps, each had at least one unique feature like a coffee curator or blind coffee tasting for a more personalized experience for each user.
• This part was tedious so I broke it down into increments in order to extract all of the data about current competitors and used the SWOT profile method to categorize information.

• There is an opening of possibility for an app that will be the next step in what a coffee subscription service can offer.
• It can be all encompassing and a resource. The key will be to center the app around a tailored user experience that includes both ease of use and features that will aid in the in-depth exploration of coffee for novices to experts.
• As I analyzed the research I was able to decide a best path forward in what I would address in my own app and how to craft my user interviews.

User Interviews & Research Analysis

Learnings

• It was important to choose the right participants, according to my previous research and project brief, to gain fundamental insights on the nuances of users to identify their personal experiences and pain points.
• The responses I received were reviewed and divided into: behaviors/attitudes, frustrations, goals/needs and quotes/facts.