Cafe culture is booming in Hong Kong. There are more choices than chained stores, providing fast free wifi and decent coffee for freelancers. Most of the online articles are focus on Hong Kong Island or cafe without wifi. I have a pain to search for cafes in other parts of Hong Kong so I design this app to facilitate the freelance working environment and also provide resources to my freelance fellows.
Interview
I interviewed five freelancers in person.
The results are
- They do not want to stay at home for work all the time
- Find cafe near their home and provide free wifi, nice coffee and food.
- They want to know if the cafe is laptop friendly and have plugs.
- They browse photos and comments to decide which cafe they go.
- They do not want to stay at home for work all the time
- Find cafe near their home and provide free wifi, nice coffee and food.
- They want to know if the cafe is laptop friendly and have plugs.
- They browse photos and comments to decide which cafe they go.
Pain point:
The current app they are using have too many restaurants and advertisements so it is too slow to use.
They spend a lot of time to filter the result.
The app does not include some cafes they find in other websites.
The app does not work offline.
The current app they are using have too many restaurants and advertisements so it is too slow to use.
They spend a lot of time to filter the result.
The app does not include some cafes they find in other websites.
The app does not work offline.
Persona
Luca
- Graphic Designer, 26s, Mac user
- Lives in Shatin, New Territories, does not like to travel to Central because of the transportation fee and duration
- Loves coffee but Hate Starbucks
- Cafe choices: Nice food, light music, can sit there for few hours for work
- Phone does not always connect online
Design Goal
1. Find cafe by nearby location and specific requirement like plugs
2. Comment and Photos are easy to read
3. Good GPS to direct my location
4. Share to friends
5. Bookmark the cafe for future use
6. Quick (less loading time)
7. Work offline
User Flow
Luca is energetic to get some work done after meeting the client in Kowloon Bay.
He opens the app to search any cafe with wifi nearby.
It is lunch time so he wants the cafe with food too.
The app shows the most nearby cafe and the icon with food.
Luca looks at the photos of Barista Kowloon quickly.
He likes it and decides to go to this cafe.
He shares the information to his friend Sean to ask him to join him.
Luca really likes the cafe and upload photos and comments.
Prototype 1
I hand draw the wireframes quickly. And produce the first prototype to test with. These are the samples of the prototypes.
Usability Test
I uploaded the prototype to InVision and asked five people to try the app. The tests carreid out in the street as if they would do when they want to find a cafe nearby.
Good:
- The cover picture is attracitve, big and nice and it is different to the other apps.
- It includes all the information they want to know.
- View more from cafe’s instagram is good because it gives more ideas to them
To improve:
- The font is too small.
- The layout is too packed to read.
- Some information is not useful like what kind of coffee the cafe use
- They do not understand some of the feature icons
- The font is too small.
- The layout is too packed to read.
- Some information is not useful like what kind of coffee the cafe use
- They do not understand some of the feature icons
After a few prototype version, I finally up the following one with improvement suggested in usability tests.
I have upload it to Invision. You are welcome to comment.
https://invis.io/BU6TXL4M5
If you are kind and would like to join the user test as well, please click the following link.
http://invis.io/t/BU6TXL4M5/8nBJtGzwipDMADZe3
Thank you very much for your time!
