Founded in Q4 2019, POR’s goal is to lower the barrier of entry into third-wave coffee. While the coffee industry is continuing to grow with more and more coffee shops popping up, there remains an informational barrier that stands between newcomers and specialty coffee. POR is seeking to lower if not break down that barrier.
As a newcomer to the industry, POR hired me to build and design an app that helps coffee beginners get into coffee by providing necessary information to get them started. In addition, they want to take full advantage of the mobile interface to create something that is delightful to use.
Affinity Publisher, Figma, Discord, OBS
UX Designer (Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, User Testing)
Secondary Research:
Primary Research:
In the competitive analysis portion, I discovered five applications that all provided, in their own way, information or features that helped newcomers to specialty coffee.
Based off of the market research, I found that, while those aged 30 and up tended to be the majority of the population that consumed coffee, those under 30 were the dominant majority when it came to interest in third-wave coffee in both areas; coffee shops and home-brewed.
One of the key methods of research for this project was the user interviews. Early on, I ran into a problem in that my scope for the users was too wide. This led to the interviews involving participants outside of the intended selection. To remedy that, I ended updating the questions as well as included a few screener questions in order to select participants that more accurately fit the provisional personas created.
After conducting the user interviews, I created an empathy map using the transcripts from the recorded interviews. From that process, I uncovered four distinct patterns that majority of participants
Insights
Needs
Using information retrieved from the empathy map and the market research conducted, I was able to create a persona that roughly represents the overall goals, needs, frustrations and motivations of POR’s customers. This provides a reference for future design choices and lends itself to creating the overall project goals.
In order to better flesh out the problems that I’m looking to solve, I used this POV & HMW chart.
After creating the “How Might We” questions, I began brainstorming different ideas and solutions for each question. In order to do that, I set a timer for 4 minutes for each question, and created mind maps during that time.
Potential Solutions:
Referencing the Persona along with the Project Brief, I created a venn diagram of the combination of the User Goals, and the Business Goals which were outlined in the brief.
The Feature Roadmap is great in laying out a path forward. Using the research data as well as the Project Goals, we are able to better flesh out our priorities when it comes to features presented.
With the feature roadmap created, the next step was to create an application map. One of the major things I focused on was prioritizing the step-by-step feature, thereby trying to reduce the number of actions it would take to get to that feature.
Referencing the UI Requirements document, I created the task flow for each task outlined. By laying out each action and screen involved with each task, I was able to get a better understanding of the necessary screens that would need to be created when designing the wireframes.
Following the Task Flows, I expanded the flow by adding in decision points, and the user flow not only helps showcase potential points where a user may abandon the task, but also provides information on the ease of the flow when performing said tasks.
Based off of my UI requirements along with the Task Flow, I drew up some sketches to represent each screen that would be crucial for the completion of the tasks listed
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
With the low-fidelity sketches in hand, I created the mid-fidelity variants with the intention for testing.
With the mid-fidelity wireframes in hand, I created a prototype within Figma using the tasks as a guide to direct the prototyping path. This portion of the project was especially important. As a new application, it was important to get feedback on not only problems with the design, but also general design changes.
Testing Goals:
Testing Methodology:
Moderated Think-Aloud Method: I will conduct this method over Zoom or the appropriate Voice Call Software by asking participants to verbalize their thoughts and actions all while completing the specified tasks through their screen-share. All sessions, both video and audio, will be recorded via OBS with consent.
Testing Procedure:
After conducting the user tests, I took the recordings and transcribed both the participant’s words and actions in order to make sense of the information. From those transcriptions, I was able to discover three patterns, two of which led to users committing errors during the test.
These insights led themselves to potential solutions that led to the final revisions for our prototype.
These are the potential solutions that I ended up suggesting, in accordance with the feedback received from the usability test participants. Here, they are arranged in order of priority, based off of impact and cost:
Based off of the priority revisions, I updated the mid-fidelity prototypes to reflect the changes that will hopefully increase the usability of the application.
With the revisions finished, I moved onto creating the branding for POR. This will help set the tone and the design for the high-fidelity wireframes later on.
Brand Words: Warm, Elegant, Craft, Minimal
This project was definitely challenging especially in the early steps of the project. Compared to the other projects I’ve worked on, this one required the most research, especially when it came to discovering the proper potential user base. This was where I did end up getting stuck on, and because of the nuance of it, I had to revise my interview questions as well as add on screener questions to be more selective in the interviewing process.
This project was definitely challenging especially in the early steps of the project. Compared to the other projects I’ve worked on, this one required the most research, especially when it came to discovering the proper potential user base. This was where I did end up getting stuck on, and because of the nuance of it, I had to revise my interview questions as well as add on screener questions to be more selective in the interviewing process.
