Hey Barista

The go-to app for coffee lovers

Social 
Malmö — Sweden

Services we provided

Product Design, Mobile Development, Backend Engineering

Deliverables

Mobile App (iOS / Android)

play

Team involved

RECOGNITIONS

5/5 rating on the Apple Store

European Design Awards 2024 Nominee

Links

Visit website

Get the app for iPhone

Get the app for Android

Summary

Hey Barista began as an annual print magazine by the world-famous oat milk company Oatly. It was their way to promote specialty coffee and engage with coffee lovers, sharing stories about their “passions, musings, and more.” Sometime later, it evolved into an online publication.

Now, we’ve joined forces with the Oatly team to elevate Hey Barista into an app that you can use to find the best cafés in town, curated by coffee-obsessed experts, and access the latest featured stories of the online magazine.

A print magazine as the starting point

Specialty coffee production is linked to specific regions, encouraging the prosperity of local communities and businesses. In contrast with regular coffee, it identifies with traceability, authenticity, and, most important, sustainability. That's why it's so relevant to promote it in as many ways as possible.

Hey Barista was born as a cool magazine, the kind of publication that’s a delight for the eyes. Targeting those in love with caffeine, it covered stories about baristas around the globe. Concerned about the limitations of paper, the Oatly team soon decided to create the publication's online version.

An app with extra creaminess

Roughly, the main goal of the Hey Barista app is to serve coffee lovers by listing the best cafés in town and being able to geolocalize them on the map. These lists are not just any lists. They are carefully curated by an expert barista in each city, who you can get to know by checking their profiles also on the app.

“We started by composing a moodboard with loads of refreshing interactions. We wanted to give a twist to how the maps are usually shown, make it more original, and not stick to the typical integration with Google Maps.”

Lucía Guillén, Lead Product Designer at Z1.

Oatly entrusted us with the app design and gave us tons of creative freedom. The only premise they set was to follow the brand guidelines of the Hey Barista publication. This branding is impactful, with solid colors and a magnificent use of typography. We automatically fell in love with it, taking advantage of its vibes for the look & feel of the app.

Commitment to accessibility

Hey Barista's UI is pretty effective, with three sections: Discover, Stories, and Profile. Our main challenge was meeting accessibility and navigation standards while keeping their distinctive ‘underground style.’

We faced the dilemma of whether to use the remarkable vertical navigation and strikethrough in the selections they employ on the online publication. Even though those are not the most accessible of the patterns, we decided to give it a go and maintain these branding elements, locating ‘Discover’, the main section of the app and the most used, in the lower left corner of the screen, which is also the handiest.

We incorporated other beautiful details into the app, such as handwriting effects on maps, delightful iterations, and fun error and loading screens.

“We took advantage of the Hey Barista branding in an interactive way. We played with the screens that are usually relegated to the merely functional, such as the loading and error screens, making them more fun.”

Lucía Guillén, Lead Product Designer at Z1.

Coordinating development and marketing
efforts

Oatly was preparing the Hey Barista launch marketing campaign while we were finishing developing the app. We had to ensure the product was tested and working perfectly to submit it to the stores for approval with enough time.

We committed to developing the Hey Barista app within one month, and we succeeded thanks to fluid and constant communication with the Oatly team, with whom we had to synchronize to adapt the design and prioritize functionalities to our limited deadline.

Regarding technologies, we used Django for the backend and React Native for the frontend. Both development teams worked side by side, maintaining impeccable daily coordination to ensure that the V1 came out on time and bug-proof.

What’s next

With 6K+ downloads in the first month after its launch, Hey Barista is receiving so much positive feedback. People compliment the look and feel and how helpful it is to discover new coffee spots.

We've truly enjoyed this project, not only in terms of design and development but also in terms of working with Oatly, whose mission of making it easy for people to live healthier lives without recklessly taxing the planet’s resources resonates so deeply with us.

It has been a true partnership in action, the way we love to craft digital products, ideating and building together, and trusting in each other. And the fact is that we are still working together, coming up with new features to amplify the app’s scope and feeling that caffeine excitement about the future to come. In the meantime… ‍

Enjoy your coffee app ;-)

TheDarkEnergist, 11/17/2023

Love it

Really enjoying it so far. Great design and vibe. Bravo!

Gotajibbo, 11/15/2023

Incredible app

Absolutely love the design and functionality of this app...I’ve already checked out 4 of the cafes

“We are very grateful for the great work done by the Z1 team, always with a smile and willingness to find solutions.”

Cedric Gairard, Oatly's Head of Production.

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