Cafe Co
Helping cafe-goers in Taipei discover and save their favorite cafes.
ROLE
iOS Engineer & Product Designer
TEAM
Guo Chen (Product Designer)
Garcia Lu (Backend Engineer)
Alfred Chen (Backend Engineer)
TIMELINE
Jan-Mar, 2021 (3 Months)
SKILLS
Xcode
Swift
UIKit
Figma
PROBLEM
Finding a good cafe is overwhelming and inefficient
Over the years in Taipei, I often encountered pain points of cafe search and “saved” cafe organization as well. There are simply too many cafes in Taipei, and it’s hard to find a good cafe that really suits my needs. It’s often a hit or miss.
Thus, after discussion with a friend, we realized there’s an opportunity to help people find and organize cafes effectively. And that was when Cafe Co started.
SOLUTION
The go-to app for cafe goers in Taipei
Over the span of three months, we created the MVP of Cafe Co, a mobile app that helps young cafe goers in Taipei easily find a cafe that fits their needs. Users can find new cafes using customizable search or the “nearby cafes” map search.
Find a cafe with intent 🔍
Over the span of three months, we created the MVP of Cafe Co, a mobile app that helps young cafe goers in Taipei easily find a cafe that fits their needs. Users can find new cafes using customizable search or the “nearby cafes” map search.
Find nearby cafes on map 📌
Just want to quickly find a cafe nearby? Check out all the cafes near your location!
Easily save & organize your cafes 🔖
No need to switch between Google Maps and Instagram. Save and organize your great finds all in one place.
MY CONTRIBUTION
iOS Development, Product Design
As the sole iOS Engineer, I was responsible for the entire end-to-end development of the iOS app. I used Xcode, Swift, UIKit, and the Maps API. In addition, I worked closely with Guo, the other designer, to conduct user research and design the app with Figma.
GOAL
Launch the iOS MVP app by end of March 2021
This was our main goal all along. And we all worked hard to try to accomplish this goal.
RESEARCH
Understanding the cafe app market & users
This was our main goal all along. And we all worked hard to try to accomplish this goal.
Competitive Analysis
We wanted to know if there were any existing products out there that tried to solve the same problem. Based on our research, we found that there aren’t many well-established cafe search apps in the market.
Now, we did find a promising platform called Cafe Nomad. It had a massive database of cafes in Taiwan. After using it, we identified some advantages and disadvantages of the platform for our project.
Enormous database
Cafe Nomad has data for over 3k users in Taiwan - an astonishing number. We decided to use their open source API for our MVP.
Customizable filter
This feature is available after subscription. We like how this can make cafe search more efficient.
Overwhelming
The cafe list is out there. Find the cafe yourself. Large list has its downside: users can get very overwhelmed.
Old UI
We believe the overall visual style can be improved upon.
User Interviews
To test for the demand and understand our potential user’s cafe search process, we conducted 7 rounds of interviews with young cafe-goers. They go to a cafe at least once per week in Taipei. I then used affinity mapping to organize the qualitative insights.
Survey
Based on the interviews, we formulated questions for an online survey. In the end, we received 30 responses from people in the Facebook group “Taiwan cafe community”. Here were the key insights:
01 | It’s efficient to find a new cafe 😓
"Sometimes the reviews aren’t objective, so I have to go through a ton of community pages or blogs about the cafe.”
02 | Top incentive to go to a cafe - Work 78% 💻
Relaxation (58%) and hangout (53%) were next.
03 | Top factors people look for in a cafe - Drinks 82.6% & No Time Limit 82.6%)
These insights directly shaped our design decision when defining the preset categories for customizable search.
TESTING
Our first beta testing
MVP of Cafe Co
We used the MVP prototype for our first beta testing with 7 users
LEARNINGS
An amazing learning experience
In the end, we did not end up launching the iOS app due to Covid outbreak in Taipei and gradual return to school. However, I did take some more time to envision what the app could ideally look like, which is showcased in the Solution section.
As my first passion project with my friends, this was incredibly fun and rewarding to do. And I learned so much during this project.
01 | Test as soon as possible 🧪
Speed is king for this project. Initially, I was fixated on the overall vision of the app. Luckily, speaking to the engineers helped me only design the essential feature for our first beta tests.
02 | Consider different end-users 🗣️
We realized this much later, but we didn’t really consider the perspective of cafe owners. We should have talked to them early in the process to understand their needs & incentives for using our app.
03 | How to work with engineers 💻
This was the first time I worked with multiple engineers. This project helped me understand different engineer's perspective and what they value.