jolt
Learning to brew coffee at home is lonely and full of guesswork. Our team of four designed Jolt, an app where brewers learn from each other instead of chasing likes. It won best overall out of six teams.
4 min read
overview
the problem
Brewers want to get better, and they learn best from people they know. Most picked up brewing from family, friends or social media, then got stuck with no clear idea what to adjust.
"People wanted to improve their brew knowledge through people in their community."
— the pattern across our 10 interviews
So Jolt is built on circles, not tools. From three feature matrices we kept five areas: home, learn, posts, saved and community.
key decisions
no likes, just learning
finding — in round one, like counts and post analytics pushed testers toward chasing attention, and the feed started to feel like another influencer app.
Counts removed — no like totals and no post analytics in the final prototype.
Best advice rises — replies are ranked by the community, Reddit-style, so the most useful feedback sits on top.
Circles — every brewer gets a small group to learn with, matched to their level.
trade-off — likes are the easiest engagement loop to build. Without them, Jolt has to earn return visits with useful answers.
onboarding that ends in a community
finding — brewers learn from people, so an empty feed on day one is the worst first impression.
Account — Google, Apple or email. Password rules check off as you type (8+ characters, a number and a symbol, passwords match).
Location, explained — the permission prompt says why: “We only use your location to personalize your experience. No sharing, no tracking.”
Level before circles — New, Casual, Everyday Enthusiast or Professional. The next screen recommends circles for that level (e.g. Espresso Experts, Cold Brew Crew), with Select all.
Never trapped — a progress bar, Back and Skip on every step.
trade-off — asking for location and level adds two steps, so each one says what it’s for.
a post is a brew log, not a photo
finding — the useful part of a post is what you’d change next time, not how it looks.
Posted to a circle — “Posting to Morning Brew Club” sits at the top, so you know who will answer.
Rate your own brew — one to five bolts. The only score on a post is the brewer’s own.
Tags, then a story — Cold Brew, Homemade, New Brewer; then a title and “walk us through your process, technique, any tweaks”.
Safe exits — Save draft, a visibility setting, and Post drops you back in the feed while it uploads.
growth as badges, not caffeine stats
finding — the mid-fi stats page (cups a day, caffeine, a “coffee quality score”) measured brewing, not learning.
Personal insights up top — earned badges, community helpers, suggested circles.
Badges tied to actions — Starting Sip (first brew), Weekly Grind (7-day streak), Insight Adopter (used feedback).
Next to unlock — locked badges show the next step, like Join a circle community.
trade-off — badges are less precise than numbers, but they reward the behaviour Jolt is for: posting, helping, joining.
what testing changed
Two rounds, five testers then four. Every row below is a change we made between them.
visual system
Coffee-brown actions — a dark brown palette for buttons and icons: warm, and high-contrast on the cream background.
One typeface — DM Sans, set as Figma text styles so all three designers’ screens match.
Rule of 4s — every spacing value is a multiple of 4, and every page shares the same margins.
constraints & reflection
Scope — one cohort sprint and a Figma prototype; nothing was built or measured live.
Not yet designed — a café map, post sharing and direct messages.
Before scaling — dedicated usability and accessibility testing, and a revenue model (café partnerships, sponsorships).
The biggest call was taking likes out. It made the app harder to keep people coming back to, and much easier to learn in. Shifting from technical tracking to learning from each other turned a fiddly hobby into a shared one.