Coffinder - Specialty Coffee Finder Mobile App & Product Exploration
Internal Concept / Personal Project
2025
Product Designer
This personal initiative focused on designing a mobile app for specialty coffee enthusiasts to discover, compare, and review local cafés. The app targets cafés that serve high-quality beans from recognized roasters or roast their own coffee, intentionally avoiding large commercial chains. The goal was to create a simple and intuitive experience that helps users find authentic specialty coffee spots based on location, preferences, and community recommendations. Being an early-stage project, we focused on understanding user behaviors, defining key personas, and mapping core flows to inform the app’s initial concept and navigation.
Targeting a niche audience
Specialty coffee enthusiasts have specific expectations and knowledge; the app needed to highlight only authentic cafés and avoid large commercial chains.
Early-stage research constraints
With no existing user data, defining personas and user flows required careful planning and assumptions based on benchmarking of other apps.
Balancing discovery with simplicity
The app needed to serve both casual users and highly engaged hobbyists without overwhelming either group, while keeping the experience clear and intuitive.
Defining essential features
Determining which functionalities—search, map-based exploration, favorites, and user profiles—would deliver the most value in a first version.
Branding and visual identity
Developed early concepts for the visual identity, including color palette, typography, and UI style guidelines, to reflect the premium and authentic feel of specialty coffee.
User research and benchmarking
Analyzed existing apps and platforms to identify UX patterns and best practices for specialty coffee discovery.
Persona definition
Created a target user profile to guide feature prioritization and user experience decisions, representing urban millennials and Gen Z users with corporate occupations and coffee as a hobby.
User journey mapping
Mapped key flows, including search, map-based exploration, favorites, and user profiles, to optimize clarity and usability.
Early wireframing
Planned and sketched low-fidelity prototypes for core navigation and discovery flows to test and refine concepts.
Low fidelity design ideation
Target User Persona (Archetype)
Branding Design: developed early visual identity concepts, including color palette, typography, and UI style guidelines to reflect the premium and authentic feel of specialty coffee
Research & Discovery: benchmarking and analysis of existing apps to identify patterns and best practices for specialty coffee discovery.
Persona Definition, defined a target user: urban millennial/Gen Z with a corporate occupation, coffee as a hobby, seeking high-quality specialty coffee during daily errands.
User Journey Mapping: Mapped and analyzed key user flows (search, map-based exploration, favorites, and user profiles) to optimize clarity and usability for specialty coffee enthusiasts, using insights from Airbnb’s map/grid interaction and TripAdvisor structure.
Low-Fidelity Prototyping: Planned and sketched early wireframes to explore core navigation, search, and discovery flows, preparing for future prototyping and testing
User Discovery · Personas · User Flows · Low-Fi Prototyping · Specialty Coffee UX · Brand Design
Initial User Flow
