The Local Coffee House App
This is the loyalty app design for the fictive café chain The Local Coffee House, aimed at making digital nomads and other workers seeking a calm workspace get a sense of entering a second home no matter the city or country. This case study was designed as part of the Google UX design certification on Coursera. Dive into this portfolio piece to understand my thoughtful approach, and discover the apps unique features.
Context
Based on user descriptions provided by Google for this part of the course, this app seeks to solve the problems faced by these fictive users. They express concerns about the uncertainties inherent to finding a place to indulge in uninterrupted focus. The app aims to alleviate the uncomfortable uncertainty users may experience in public cafés by offering a seamless booking experience that ensures a comfortable and familiar workspace. Eventually, the app concept would include discount coupons and loyalty rewards, such as a free coffee after every six purchases. However, for the sake of scoping, I decided to focus on the app's booking functionality
The user flow
The Local Coffee House app seeks to give a familiar and welcoming experience to it's users. Here I've tried to establish a recognizable brand and identity that would entitle both comfort and sophistication. The app's home interface displays personalized content, including the nearest café within the chain and the user's favorite orders. When booking a seating users are guided through a seamless booking process, where they can easily select the time, date, café, and seating options. Users have various options, they can pre-book for multiple people which gives them a discount per booked user and as an accessibility consideration for people hard reading maps or in a new area, they can choose to see the nearest cafés from both a list view and a map view. With this loyalty app they are ensured to have a reserved table and chair upon arrival, providing a sense of certainty and comfort.
Creation Process and design considerations
The process taught in the google UX design course is based from the Design Thinking Process originally coined by Ideo. The activities for each of the phases here at the course was highly structured with clear next steps for the given situation. To me this has been extremely gifting as the course have expanded my "tool box" of problem solving approaches. I will in the following part of this case study showcase the tools used here.
All rights for the picture above goes to Google UX Design on Coursera.
The persona Rebecca was created based on the provided user description from Google, this was an exercise for empathizing with a potential user.
To advance the concept two digital hand-drawn story boards were created in the format of a big picture and a close-up showcasing the users story in different detail levels before during and after a visit to the café. I find that visualization through story boarding is an effective way to emphasize and later reflect on the service's functionality.
FigJam was used here to create a frictionless transition for later prototyping in Figma. The prototype served as a discussion tool during usability testing with real potential users, which provided valuable insights to improve the concept. Try my low-fidelity prototype here
The AI Image generator MidJourney
After testing the low-fidelity prototype, I started creating the content for the hi-fidelity app. During this process, I found that the image generative AI tool Midourney was a great tool for conceptualizing and testing different styles for the digital service. With the help of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator, the tool was even used to create assets within the prototype. This approach allowed for greater creativity and flexibility in the design process, resulting in a more visually appealing and engaging final product.
Thank you for reading! I sincerely appreciate your interest in my creation piece. If you have any questions, comments or feedback regarding the creation, please reach out, I'll love to hear from you and give you my thoughts.
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