Fresh Beans For The Coffee Club.

Have you noticed the new Coffee Club brand? A few months ago, coffee lovers said goodbye to the old logo and welcomed a contemporary brand mark + digital experience. Sure the new logo is fine, but the supporting digital assets have taken a dire step backwards. It could be the use of oversized icons or Arial as their primary font (ek!), but overall this new digital experience feels very 2000s. Not at all reflective of present-day design standards (no offence Coffee Club). With 400 stores across 9 countries they deserve an experience reflective of their industry stance. Here’s how we’d shake things up for the Coffee Club.

Positioning 

Alright so let’s start with why customers are accessing the website and what we want to say. With this in mind, we pushed three messages via our redesign of the hero banner.  

• Where you can find Coffee Club locations

• What is offered on the menu 

• And what coffee can you purchase directly

Comparatively, the current site pushes promotions through a multi-image hero slider. There are a few problems with this. The hero banners are images with text, meaning the text content isn’t readable by Google (not good for SEO). They’re also not responsive. Finally, the hero positioning doesn’t directly answer the primary reason for a user to visit the website or provide clear CTAs. Sure the current messaging is fun and has value in cementing the brand personality, but perhaps not in a space of primary real estate. What do you think? Is their current hero messaging fine as is? Join the convo on our LinkedIn page here.  

Navigation 

You’ve heard of the seven deadly sins? Well, the same number applies for navigation. Seven menu items is a sin in our opinion. It exceeds best practice UX and is just darn overwhelming for users to digest. We’ve stripped things back to four primary items, with all remaining pages contained within the hamburger menu. Clean and simple. No distractions for users.The logo has also been converted into a condensed vertical mark (instead of a longer, horizontal logo) to give more breathing room within the navigation. To create visual interest the nav is split, catering for taller images as well as a sticky ‘Online Store’ CTA via the right hand side. 

Information Architecture

Alright so we’ve talked about the hero banner. But we’re not quite done yet. Traditionally we’re against multiple sliders and if you follow our LinkedIn page, you’ll know that we’ve made this position clear. However, for this vision we decided to maintain the Coffee Club’s multi-slide banner based on their primary audience - middle age to seniors. This is a demographic that may be accustomed to old school ‘best practice’ digital (such as multi-sliders). So why not play our own devil’s advocate and maintain this expectation for them? The point we’re trying to make is there’s no ‘one size fits all’ solution. A/B testing is required to find what works best for your audience. The digital experience should be tailored to align with their expectations and make life easier. Simple.Okay now let’s talk about what comes next.  Remember that sticky ‘Online Store’ button we mentioned just now? Yep, it’s following you down the page as you scroll.  A constant reminder of the Coffee Club’s products. You’ll then reach four x feature cards. Our intention here is for the Coffee Club to promote relevant messages, promotions or events. Although the existing website addresses four x similar points, the current site lacks context. There’s no description enticing you to view the app or become a VIP member. It’s really just an empty statement. Instead, our design gets the user enthused via a supporting statement and image. 

CTAs

Consistency, consistency...one more time, consistency. All CTAs adopt the same layout with a black and white arrow. Users know exactly what to expect and where to navigate for each call to action.

Aesthetics

We’ve kept things light and contemporary. A minimal design that optimises white space and uses concise, punchy copy to say a lot with a little. We’ve stuck with black, greys and pastel colours adding to the simplicity of the design. The (tasty, tasty) images then serve as the primary source of colour - which, at the end of the day, is what the Coffee Club is all about: good food and beans. 

So what do you think? 

Good improvement for the Coffee Club? UX/UI analysis are our jam. If you’d like a free consult on your digital register here or drop us a line on greg@lamb.com.au. We’ll talk through your goals, pain points and highlight a set of improvements to enhance your user experience.