Wanna jump straight to the visuals? I’ve got you
Scope - This project was created as part of a semester-long workshop within the XMTA Community, which I co-founded and co-led at the Academic College of Tel Aviv–Yaffo. The goal of the workshop was to guide students through the complete process of designing a mobile application — from ideation to high-fidelity prototype. As both a participant and mentor, I developed my own project, BrewNerd — a companion app for coffee enthusiasts designed to enhance brewing skills and knowledge.
Role - UX Research, Wireframing ,Illustrations & UI Design
Tools - Figma
Problem Statement
Coffee enthusiasts often struggle to track and refine their brewing process across different devices, ratios, and recipes. Existing tools are fragmented, focusing either on timers, note-taking, or community sharing — but not on personal learning and consistency.
User profile - to store personal data and owned equipment.
Brew journal - for documenting recipes, ratios and tasting notes.
Knowledge hub - with insights, brewing guides, and updates from the coffee world.
KPI'S
User Retention – measure how often users return to log new brews over time. Consistent usage indicates the app has become part of their daily coffee ritual.
Brew Journal Completion Rate – track how many users fully record brew sessions (including notes and ratings), reflecting usability and satisfaction with the logging flow.
Feature Interaction Diversity – assess how many unique features (journal, calculator, guides) users engage with, showing whether the app supports exploration and learning, not just single-task use.
Conducting the Research
As part of the short workshop timeline, the research phase focused on gathering quick but meaningful insights to guide the app’s core functionality.
The process included competitor analysis, target audience definition, and a series of user interviews aimed at understanding coffee enthusiasts habits, motivations, and frustrations when it comes to tracking and improving their brewing process.
Competitor Research
As part of the research phase, I analyzed three leading coffee-related mobile apps to identify common design patterns, usability gaps, and potential opportunities for improvement. The goal was to understand how existing platforms support users in logging, learning, and refining their coffee brewing experience.
Key Findings
Balance Between Professionalism and Accessibility – Most apps tend to focus either on beginners or on experts, leaving a gap for an app that can adapt to different skill levels while remaining intuitive.
Guided Brewing vs. Flexibility – Structured, step by step brewing flows help beginners but often frustrate advanced users. BrewNerd needed a flow that could guide without restricting.
Community Features Lack Depth – Existing “recipe sharing” tools lack meaningful interaction or insight. BrewNerd should focus on personal learning and reflection rather than social posting.
Target Audience
Skill Range & Motivation — Beginners seeking foundations, hobbyists refining recipes, and professionals tracking precise improvements.
Tech savvy, detail oriented users — Comfortable with apps and basic calculations; value control over ratio, temperature, timing, and repeatability.
Self learners with upgrade intent — Curious tinkerers who improve via trial-and-error and are open to equipment upgrades driven by journal/calculator insights.
User Interviews
To gain qualitative insights into how coffee enthusiasts approach their daily brewing routine, I conducted in-depth interviews with experienced users.
The goal was to identify pain points, decision factors, and opportunities for digital support in their workflow.
Key Findings
Hands-on, ritualistic process – The participant treats coffee preparation as a daily ritual, balancing intuition and precision. This highlights the need for a tool that supports both structure and creativity.
Preference for clarity over automation – Guided brewing is helpful, but automatic step progression feels restrictive; users prefer control over pacing.
Learning through theory and experimentation – The user learns mainly from experts and refines techniques through trial and error. The app should integrate feedback that encourage reflection and adjustment.
High sensitivity to bean and grind details – Factors such as grind size, roast, and bean origin strongly affect satisfaction, suggesting the importance of detailed parameter logging.
Designing the Solution
Information Architecture
A lean, task-first structure: Login leads to four primary sections — New Brew, Log, Explore, Profile — covering creation, tracking, learning, and account.
Lo-Fi Wireframes
Design Decisions
The color system was inspired by Pantone’s 2025 shade — a soft coffee tone that reflects warmth and sophistication. Most interface elements use variations of this hue (#A47864), maintaining a calm, unified aesthetic. To create visual contrast and support clear call-to-actions, a green accent (#1EA686) was chosen, referencing a similar use found in competitor apps. The overall palette avoids visual overload, keeping the interface clean and focused on usability.
All brewing-method illustrations were hand-crafted in Figma using the Pen Tool, designed to communicate authenticity and craftsmanship. Since existing visual resources failed to capture the essence of manual brewing, I created unique illustrations that both educate and invite exploration. Each visual was intentionally styled to evoke curiosity while reinforcing BrewNerd’s professional yet approachable identity.
Results and Impact
BrewNerd began as a workshop experiment and evolved into a complete, high-fidelity prototype — a companion app that empowers coffee enthusiasts to document, refine, and perfect their brews. Through research, design iteration, and user feedback, I created a product that balances functionality with warmth and personality.
Final Screens
Full Prototype