My role
Solo UX designer designing an app from concept to delivery.
Timeline
May 2023 - Aug 2023 (10 weeks)
(refreshed 2025 iteration)
Background
Nodi Coffee is a specialty roaster and coffee shop chain in Hong Kong's bustling financial district.
Their target customers are in high demand for premium coffee but are always too busy for coffee purchases.
Problem
The Rise of home coffee consumption due to the pandemic makes e-commerce progressively important.
The company wishes to improve its app to provide a smoother shopping experience to customers and promote home brewing culture in Hong Kong.
User Interviews
I conducted interviews with 6 coffee lovers who are aged 25-38 and visit specialty coffee shops regularly.
I have asked about their spending habits on coffee (at coffee shops & home), basic knowledge of coffee usually be found on the menu,
pain points of home brewing and purchasing related products, etc.
Major Insight
Hard to understand the language of coffee. They found difficulties in ordering coffee and purchasing coffee-related products.
Too busy to purchase and fill up coffee beans and rather visit coffee shops.
Misunderstanding home brewing must be involving a lot of work and types of equipment.
“ How might we become the best friend of each coffee lovers -
support them when they need coffee refill & technical advice thoughtfully? “
Persona & User Journey Map
Based on the insight from user interviews and reviewing each actions,
I made my best assumptions to try identifying these other pain points that provided opportunities for my design.
I applied Crazy Eight to brainstorm the possibilities to solve the obstacles I discovered from the above research.
Some of the ideas are interesting and practical, so I used several of them and tried to make them work.
Crazy Eight
1) How to have fresh coffee beans regularly?
2) How does the brew guide work the best?
3) How do users understand the menu easily?
Ideation
The initial designs went through several user tests and uncountable iterations to ensure a friendly and scalable user experience.
I wish I could share every single part of the process with you! Below are the 5 major changes.
/ Connect with people
/ Industrial
/ Urban
Rebranding & Design System
Brand DNA
Nodi's core identity channels an industrial, urban essence - modern and sleek,
offering busy Hong Kong professionals a momentary pause amid hustle.
Rooted in the "knot" motto of human connection,
it uses sparse grey-black palettes for raw sophistication, accented by subtle red and yellow pops.
Current website & app
Solutions
Simple, thoughtful and quick access are key
丨
Providing smooth shopping experience
丨
Promoting home brewing culture
丨
Simple, thoughtful and quick access are key 丨 Providing smooth shopping experience 丨 Promoting home brewing culture 丨
Reflections -
What I would do differently next time
Don’t start with UI that early. I have a graphic design background, so I always could not wait to see the whole picture visually. This caused a lot of time to fix every iteration.
Don’t wait for perfection, move to the next step and keep iterating. When I look back now, I understand there is no “perfect outcome”, the only solution is to keep evaluating and reviewing.
Seek a mentor’s guidance and support in the industry earlier. Preparing my UX portfolio alone at home makes me feel like making a cart behind closed doors sometimes. I should start networking on LinkedIn and UX community to communicate with other talents earlier. But after all, it takes darkness to see the star, I understand good peers are crucial in this industry. I am so excited to meet more and more UX talents soon.
Thank you for reading!