When time allows, I like to get a little change of scenery by working part-time on interesting ideas my friends or colleagues direct my way. In 2014, I worked with RoastLog to design their first mobile app from the ground up. The project started with user research, followed by design cycles spread over several iterations, and concluding with additional input from a visual designer (final screen) to add some extra polish.

My Role

My role was initially as the sole designer, discovering user needs and then defining the IA and interactions. Near the end of the project, we also brought in a another designer to give the interface the polish and visual definition.

Goals

RoastLog is a small company that provides solutions to craft coffee roasters who want to have greater insight and control over the roasting of their coffee beans. RoastLog provides a hardware and software that enables roasters to monitor attributes of each roast in real time. I had previously worked with RoastLog to improve other aspects of their desktop and browser-based software that functioned in many ways as a mini ERP for craft roasters. This time, RoastLog brought me in to design their first native mobile offering, the Roast Logger iPad App, to allow their customers to be more mobile or more compact when working with the system.

Research

I started off by familiarizing myself with the industry. This meant conversations with Roast Log founder, Brian Zambrano, as well as some light reading. Brian also arranged for me to observe the roasting process with some of his actual users, in which I first observed silently as craftsmen roasted several batches of beans, followed up by interviews to gain further insights.

Initial Design

RoastLog has few competitors and solves a fairly unusual set of user needs, so there wasn't a lot of direct inspiration I could gain from other products. Instead, I took inventory of the most valuable information the app would need to display, as well as the controls users would need to interact with the system. This was based on the prior user research and the deep knowledge of the co-founder with whom I worked.

Most of the action happens on the main view, where users either monitor current roast temperatures and mark key events, or review past roasts to see what might have contributed to a particularly good (or bad!) roast. Other views were focused on roast history or system setup, but this main view needed to have at-a-glance data display for temperature(s) over time, supplemented by read-outs for a handful of supporting measurements. The key controls were starting and stopping the roast, and placing markers to indicate things like "First Crack" — when the coffee beans first pop like popcorn to indicate a significant moment in the roast.

Early Concepts:

Later Iteration:

Polish & Release

Once the layout, interactions, and system behaviors had been specified, it was time to finalize the designs for development. My focus is typically on information architecture, usability, and system design. I have been working to improve my visual skills, but don't really consider this area to be a strength or specialty of mine. Another designer was responsible for polishing the designs for the Roast Logger app and providing the final assets to developers.

Reflections

Despite this being a project done after-hours and in my spare time, I had a fantastic time working with Brian Zambrano and some of RoastLog's customers to create an app experience that would help craft coffee roasters continue to make the coffee I love to sip. A few months after completing designs, the app went live and has been very well received by RoastLog's customers. It would be fun to revisit users who have swapped out their laptops for iPads to find out what works well for them in this app — and to fix what doesn't!

Roast Log iPad App