Connect across the city through shared values, goals, with a cup of Coffee.
espressoh! is a social networking app designed for young professionals, graduate students, and career changers in NYC who are seeking support and meaningful connections.
By facilitating genuine, in-person coffee meetups, espressoh! fosters authentic relationships and builds a supportive community, eliminating impersonal cold messaging and promoting lasting bonds.
My Role
Branding
Product Design
User Testing
Design system
Team
1 UX Research
3 Product Designers (me)
Duration
15 Weeks
Challenge
Newcomers to NYC, especially young professionals, grad students, and career changers, often struggle to build meaningful relationships that support their social and professional growth, as most social platforms prioritize surface-level interaction over real-world connections.
Discover
Survey Responses
User Interviews
Encountered Difficulties In Making Connections
Insights Identified
Our Goals
We saw an opportunity to connect NYC’s vibrant coffee scene with the evolving needs of seeking meaningful and lasting relationships.
Our goal was to build a fun and supportive platform that encourages offline meetups and nurtures more casual, authentic connections with these core objectives:
Learn, Iterate, Improve
Throughout the project, we worked closely with potential users and the product team to test our solutions for usability and usefulness.
We drew from key insights gathered through user testing sessions to continuously improve upon our designs. After multiple rounds of iteration and fine-tuning, we arrived at a solution that truly resonates with the needs of our users, bringing best-in-class app design standards to fulfill their needs.
Tackling Redemption Confusion
Users were confused by the language used on the rewards page, and some struggled to find key information.
We removed the leveling-up system to avoid having two in-app currencies (XP and Bean Bucks) and relabeled the main CTA buttons for better clarity.
Improving HomePage Layout
Content layout does not match with users mental model and expectations.
Progress
We prioritized upcoming meetups and reorganized the cafe discovery section to improve navigation and overall user flow.
Impactful Designs
espressoh! is a platform designed to help young professionals, graduate students, and career changers grow their social and professional networks in a more casual, authentic way.
Maintain connections and earn rewards
Stay motivated to nurture your connections by earning Bean Bucks. Collect rewards by following up, hitting a new cafe, and more.
Break the ice with the AI virtual host
No more awkward small talk. Your AI virtual host makes it easy to kick off real conversations.
Discover and connect
Swipe on cafes you like, connect and mingle with like-minded people in your field through shared cafe preferences. Turning digital matches into real-world meetups.
