Ground Rules
Role:
User Research, UX/UI Design
For | At:
Intern Project | Viget
Making coffee is exhausting, especially for the already-tired people who are doing it. What’s even more exhausting is when it turns out terribly. Ground Rules helps tired coffee drinkers get good coffee with as little effort as possible. It recommends roasts based on users’ preferences and helps users master their coffee-making machines.
User Research
I conducted 23 interviews with coffee drinkers, asking participants questions about how they make coffee and what they like and dislike about that routine. Next, I created a survey that I distributed through social media. My research gave me several important insights about our target users:
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They value the taste of coffee over the caffeine.
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They are open to trying new methods of making coffee, but only if they are cheap, easy, and efficient.
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The most popular coffee devices among our target demographic were the coffee maker, Keurig, and French Press.
These discoveries led our team to refine our initial goal of helping people make a better cup of coffee; we decided to help people make good coffee with as little effort as possible.
UX/UI Design
Our team compiled a feature plan to identify what would be needed for the MVP. Using this list of features, I started sketching out ideas for user flows and site structures. I also created a data model to help communicate my ideas to the team developer.
Then I started wireframing my ideas in Figma. (I determined that the primary use case would be mobile, so I started with a mobile design.) I decided to design two primary user flows: one for roast recommendations and the other for coffee-making device tips. My reasoning was that the flows would be used in two different contexts: the roast flow while shopping in the store, and the device flow while making coffee at home.
I collaborated with the graphic designer, copywriter, and front-end developers in creating the final design. Over the course of 3 weeks, we worked together to add stylized copy, incorporate coffee-inspired illustrations, refine interactive elements, and build out desktop comps. After the build-out was complete, I led the group in functional, interface, and browser QA to make sure the site was working the way we envisioned.
