Case Study: Cirque Coffee
A New Experience for Smooth Sips + Effortless First Time Orders
Cirque Coffee is a local coffee chain based out of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The chain has evolved from a sit-in location into a multi location, retro-fitted shipping container drive through. Offering specialty coffee, fast and to-go.
Recently, the chain announced it would be expanding to two shipping containers in the local area. With this in mind, and as a regular, I started to notice some frustrations within the app - specifically if I was a first time user.
The Problem
Cirque Coffee's first-time users face challenges in ordering quickly and effortlessly through the app, leading to frustration and a search for a faster solution.
The Solution
How might we simplify the app experience so new users can effortlessly checkout?
Usability Audit
Conducting a usability audit on the app helped uncover some of the main frustrations of the current experience and wow moments, to help inform changes.
Competitor Benchmarking
Looking at similar businesses, such as Scooters or Blank Street helped with ideation to show how alternate options for users function and work.
Business and User Frustrations
Identifying user frustrations and what would lead to increased business sales was central to informing design decisions.
User Frustrations
The model of Cirque Coffee's drive through is that users would ideally be able to order a coffee quickly from their app. Customers who may see the retro-fitted shipping container on their daily drive have a hard time trying to order a coffee on-the-go.
Business Frustrations
Due to new users inability to order a coffee quickly and having to go through the entire onboarding process, this would lead to a slow new user acquisition and potentially a high abandon rate to go with what they already have.
Ideation
Utilizing a mind map and the crazy eights process helped bring to life some new solutions for our core issue — ordering some great coffee, quickly.
Mind Map
Laying out ways that the current experience can be improved and what features we can add to solve the problem space. A few key things that came from this were ordering as a guest, a nav bar, and a homepage redesign.
Crazy 8's
This is where the ideas that were mapped out were dreamt to life. Utilizing some great industry-standard ideas and some new ways of presenting the information, it helped develop a stronger sense of how to solve the problem.
User Flows
It was essential to grab a clear perspective on what exactly users were experiencing. The user flow helped, in a very tangible way, uncover where user decisions could be made easier.
Rapid Prototyping
Utilizing wireframes informed the final layout and design in a low-cost flow to help develop the new experience before moving on to the high fidelity design.
High Fidelity Prototyping
After completing the wireframes and perfecting the experience, it was time to prototype.
Usability Testing
Gathering real user data showcased that the design and functionality added a lot of value to the user journey. When writing the testing script, it was imperative to break down the prototype flow into short, focused sections to test — one task and one follow-up question.
Scoring a 72 on a scale of 100 in usability was very encouraging. Users generally followed on expected paths, and stated repeatedly that the app was easy to use. A survey at the end of the test was given asking users how confident they would be in completing this task in 5-10 minutes from start to finish. 81% answered they absolutely could while 19% answered they felt fairly confident. No testers indicated they did not feel confident.
Retrospective
Gathering real user data showcased that the design and functionality added a lot of value to the user journey. When writing the testing script, it was imperative to break down the prototype flow into short, focused sections to test — one task and one follow-up question.
Scoring a 72 on a scale of 100 in usability was very encouraging. Users generally followed on expected paths, and stated repeatedly that the app was easy to use. A survey at the end of the test was given asking users how confident they would be in completing this task in 5-10 minutes from start to finish. 81% answered they absolutely could while 19% answered they felt fairly confident. No testers indicated they did not feel confident.
Three key learnings
1. Users generally found the app UI refresh a welcomed change to the already developed and live app. Stating that it felt cleaner, and overall more organized.
2. While the search function was disabled in this iteration, due to technical limitations in Figma, most users would prefer to search for their drink of choice than have it presented to them.
3. The hierarchy within the design helped users identify common industry standard tasks and easily onboard to a new environment quickly.
Next Steps
Given more time to iterate, focus would be set on fleshing out the checkout screen a bit more. Offering more detail on the drink, such as customized selections. Another integration would be dark mode, for users who prefer a darker theme. Then, user testing would begin again to test new features and improvements on current features — informing future changes.