Flat What!
How can we help overseas traveller order the right coffee in Australia. UX case study
Project overview
Australian coffee culture is one of the most advanced in the world. Yes, It’s one of the best and millions of overseas travellers don’t even realise when they’re visiting Australia. Of course, coffee may be not their interest, they are here for the Opera House, Bondi Beach or the Sydney Harbour, and they don’t even care to get a $1 Latte from 7 Eleven or Nespresso in the hotel room. But We enjoy coffee and everything around it! It’s a way of life, not just fuel to get you through the day. So, we should help them to experience our coffee culture while they are in the country.
Process
Challenge & my personal experience
I’ve also been a barista for many years and there’s always a common theme when traveller arrives at a cafe. They struggled to order a coffee and understand coffee menu.
A common conversation between a traveller and a cafe staff.
Cafe staff : Hi, how can I help you?
Traveller : Can I get a coffee please?
Cafe staff : What coffee would you like?
Traveller : ummmm, just a coffee please.
Cafe staff : Flat White?
Traveller : Flat What?
The conversation could keep going for too long in a busy cafe.
Ordering coffee in Australia is not as simple as it sounds you can’t just ask for a coffee, specificity is the key.
And sometimes in rush hour, tourist can create frustration for cafe staffs and other customers too.
So, how can we..
Help oversea travellers slot in our cafe seamlessly, absorbed into the team like a dancer joining a group routine without missing a step to give the best possible experience from an Australian cafe.
Research
After gathering my thought from experience I send out survey to oversea travellers in Australia, past tourists, migrants and cafe staffs to get useful quantitative information. Then, I conducted the interview with 6 people to gain fresher qualitative information to form the affinity map. This would also confirm my assumptions as well as gain deeper user insight.
Key Quotes directly from user
“I don’t know the different between Latte and Flat White”
“It’s just easier in America”
“My friend recommend a Flat White, he thought it can’t go wrong but I drink black coffee only”
Key Quotes directly from cafe staff
“Oversea traveller take too long to order”
“I need to ask them to be on the side of the queue and decide on the order first”
Insight
Field Visit
Another interesting fact I found during the visit to many cafes is, coffee menu board is only for pricing purpose which is fair enough because we all know what coffee we want but for oversea travellers, it doesn’t really help much. Some travellers only order what’s on the menu. From the menu below, they may order a “REGULAR” coffee without being specific which coffee they want.
Users
My target users are people who love to travel, enjoy trying something new, age between 25–45 and a mid range tech savvy.
They are adaptable and get excited to be in a new culture.
Ideation
- Creating a channel for travellers to connect with local barista and coffee geek.
- Creating an educational space about Australian coffee culture.
- Comparing coffee menu.
- Convert a user’s coffee to an Australian coffee item.
- Recommend a good cafe and suitable time to visit.
- Learn Australian coffee and it’s terminology before they arrive.
- Australian coffee culture presented on the arriving airplane.
The key objectives here are to get the user to understand the different between each coffee and confidence to order when they arrive at a cafe.
Design principles
After our research and ideation, I have come up with a set of design principles to make sure the design will be appealing to the user.
- Intuitive interactive design, make sure it’s attractive a pleasure to use.
- Simple, nice clean easy on the eyes and focus on the key information.
- Maintain consistent standards, so users know what to do next without having to learn new toolsets.
- Don’t make users remember information; keep options, etc. visible.
Wireframe
Design Critics
- Is it necessary to have a log-in page and keep user’s information.
- The second fold is hidden.
- Become tricky to navigate and get lost.
- No Home button.
Prototype
Mobile App is the obvious choice to attack the objectives we aim for. User can take it anywhere, learning any time and even use for communicating with cafe staffs if needed.
Key feature
- Comparing 2 different coffee type side by side.
- Showing full coffee menu in detail and clear infographic.
- Build your own coffee and get an Australian name for it to order.
- Customise a coffee item and learn the new name for it.
- Add coffee that user wants to order in the order list.
Other opportunity
While a mobile app is really handy and portable, the user may not feel the need before they face the problem and that might be too late and doesn’t make its full potential for the app.
The introduction of the app on the IN-FLIGHT screen could make a really fantastic impact! The users have no idea of the issue they are going to face the Australia, then they find this app on screen while forcing to be sat for many many hours on the airplane, and they need sometime to kill.
The user would find the issue they are going to face on screen rather than in real life and this could be the opportunity to introduce a mobile app too.
Or this could even be the system to order coffee on the airplane for first class passenger?
What’s next
This is still an ongoing project, it will need more features to attract wide audiences.
What I would like to revisit
- Research
- Select participants from different country.
- Usability test of the prototype with users.
- Design direction.
It seems like the solutions are very simple but this could effect so many people from tourist, cafe owner (more profit), cafe staffs, even others’ cafe customer. And what I hope in the future, Australian coffee can make an impact on tourism Australia. We can be the coffee hub of the world, travellers will talk about Australian coffee culture before coming here. Coffee culture in Australia could be like Street Food in Asia that everybody is talking about.
