I observed the time-consuming process of a friend making a single cup of pour over. She went from googling brew instructions, picking one recipe from thousands of results, taking down a whole page of notes of time and pouring steps, to finally making the brew while constantly pausing the timer to look at her notes. The coffee was not bad, but it got me thinking: does it have to be this complicated?
Problem
Making a good pour over coffee can be too technical and complicated.
Solution
Provide a simplified mobile guide with built in timer, curated recipe list, and brew tracking tools.
Role
UX Designer & Researcher
Timeline
2 Weeks
With the thought lingering in my mind, I decided to take the plunge and explore the world of coffee making and the experience of avid home brewers. Before constructing an effective user research plan, I ventured out to find out if there’s any market value and how Puer could position itself among competitors. I conducted the research aiming to find out: What is the business value? Who are the competitors? Who will be the primary users? What pain points users are facing?
After days of reading articles, reports, books and countless midnight chatting sessions with coffee enthusiasts, I have gained following key insights:
This article By Oliver Strand appeared in the New York Times a decade ago and witnessed the beginning of the increasing popularity of pour over outside of Japan.
With more people brewing at home and the increasing popularity of making pour over, how are people achieving their goal of making a good home brew? To find the answer, I interviewed 4 people about their experience in order to get a sense of their needs and their pain points.
“ I don’t have a good memory. It’s a dread that I have to google how to make it every time.”
“ I’ve tried all kinds of recipes. I wish there’s a more effective method to take brew notes and develop my own.”
“ It seems difficult and takes so much practice to get better. Sometimes I just don’t have the time to search for instructions.”
“ I get different results every time I brew, I don’t know how to improve.”
Insights & findings from the interviews:
It’s no surprise that technology and coffee go hand in hand. But are there any good solutions out there helping people make better pour over? In order to find out how Puer could position itself among competitors, I constructed an analysis of potential competitors. I evaluated popular features based on user feedback from surveys/reviews and identified missing features that Puer could utilize.
Based on the user interviews and marketplace research, I was able to identify a list of potential features. I was able to narrow down and focus on what is vital to the success of the product. I also came up with a few features that we could build in the future.
The initial user feedback speaks to the need for an easy way to make better pour over. Tackling the user pain points, the MVP will also integrate popular recipes into the app and make it easy for users to customize the recipes.
Who am I designing for?
To have a deep understanding of the target users, I created the personas based on the research insights. With this I was able to put myself in the users’ shoes to better understand their pain and needs. I kept referring back to the personas for guidance on design decisions.
I structured the user flowchart to better understand how the features and key information would fit together for a smooth user flow. It also helped me identify bugs or missing features early on.
I created the wireframes for the app’s potential UI and core features.The wireframes helped me to start a conversation with other designers and potential users for brainstorming and feedback.
Before I dive deep into high-fidelity mockups, I decided to create a paper prototype to test the concept. I received some critical early feedback from real users. This was both fun and nerve wracking.
I visited 2 of my favorite specialty coffee shops in New York City and solicited 4 baristas for their opinions on the prototype. 3 of them are experienced at making pour over and 1 just learned on the job.
Guerrilla testing
Taste preference
After the initial testing, I found that Puer is lacking in allowing users to control the brew result. In the next iteration, I added taste preferences. Users can set their preferences and the maths & steps will be laid out to follow. This made sure that the app is still simple to follow but gives users full control over the brew result.
Preview brew
“Wait, how many cups did I select?” - Testing Participant
To make sure users are aware of their selections from the previous screen, I included users’ brew selections in the brew preview.
Timer
During testing I realized the timer screen is a bit cramped and users’ eyes were drawn to the illustration. I reimagined the timer screen so that it’s less distracting and easier to follow.
From the interviews, I found that pour over enthusiats wanted to customize their own recipes, I had to make sure the design of recipe selection covers this use case.
To ensure the users have full control over the recipe they use, I added a section for users to set their own ratios and values of each recipe.
A significant reason many people enjoy the pour over method is that it allows complete control over the brewing process. By adding a taste preference section, I wanted to allow users to:
The drawdown time of each pour varies depending on grind size, water temperature, and roast level of bean. Even if a recipe says to wait for 45s for each pour, users may find it takes less than that time. I had to make sure the timer design was flexible to account for drawdown time fluctuations. When designing the timer, I wanted to make sure:
Given the current situation of the pandemic, testings were done remotely via Zoom & Figma. I recruited 5 home brewers to help me test the prototype. I was able to itendity some major usability problems and solve them in the next iteration.
01. Progress indicator
Some users noticed that it’s not clear where they were in the whole brew process. In order to improve status visibility, I added a progress indicator to let users know how many pours left in the process.
02. Simplified guide
Testing participants expressed that having two separate steps for pour and drain is not necessary. Also since the pouring speed won’t affect the brew result much, I decided to combine the steps into one for each pour.
03. Total Water Amount
During testing, I found users were confused about when to stop pouring. Since users would use a separate scale to track the total water. I add a total water section to the timer screen so that users would know how much water to pour and when to stop pouring.
04. Timer Countdown
I found users were confused about when to stop pouring. Since users would use a separate scale to track the total water. I add a total water section to the timer screen so that users would know how much water to pour and when to stop pouring.
05. Customization Placement
I realized in the testing that users usually select a recipe first and then decided whether to customize it. In the next iteration, I placed the customization below the recipe selection.
In this project, I learned a great deal that it's crucial to acquire deep subject matter expertise as a designer. Studying all the pour over making methods and recipes helped me better understand the problems and design for domain-specific use cases.
Due to time constraints, I had to skip a lot of primary research and make a lot of decisions based on assumptions and guerrilla testing. If I had more time, I'd conduct more interviews and observations to deep dive into underlying motivations and needs.
I had fun doing guerilla testing with the paper prototype and I love talking to people about my ideas and design. It was also super rewarding to see a concept growing into something real.