Case 01 DoubleB 2020 Mobile · iOS + Android

Coffee, ordered before
you’re in line.

A mobile loyalty and ordering app for the coffee brand DoubleB — designed during COVID to keep orders fast, contactless, and personal without losing the warmth of a regular café visit.

Role · Sole Designer · End-to-end

ClientDoubleB · ДаблБи
Year2020
ScopeiOS & Android · End-to-end
TeamDesigner + 2 engineers
Context

A coffee chain rethinking its everyday flow.

01 · 04

DoubleB is a Russian coffee brand with cafés people visit on the way to work — short queues, regulars, baristas who remember your order. In spring 2020, COVID changed all of it overnight: contactless became a requirement, queues became liabilities, and loyalty cards stopped being a thing you could hand over.

They needed an app — but not a generic ordering one. The point was to keep the daily ritual recognisable on a phone.

In-store · Pre-COVID flow
FIG 01 The café experience the app had to translate to mobile.
Brand & tone audit
FIG 02 Existing brand language — warm, no-nonsense.
Problem

Mobile ordering felt like queuing in a different way.

02 · 04

The competing apps we tested were forms wearing café skins — long lists, generic checkout, and loyalty cards bolted on as an afterthought.

  • Ordering felt like data entry, not “a coffee on the way”.
  • Loyalty existed in a separate tab from the menu.
  • Pickup logistics (which café, when, how) were buried behind taps.
Competitive teardown · 6 apps, side-by-side
FIG 03 A wall of competitors revealed three repeating failure points.
Process

Designed in three passes.

Step 01 · Research

Listening to regulars.

Interviews with 9 customers and 4 baristas to map the real morning flow.

Interview notes · journey map
R-01Customer journey, on paper first.
Barista shadow · 3 cafés
R-02Behind-the-counter constraints.
Persona · the regular
R-03Daily, low-friction.
Persona · the explorer
R-04Tries seasonal menu.
Persona · the gifter
R-05Sends coffee to colleagues.
Step 02 · Exploration

Finding the shape of the home screen.

Eight directions tested, three taken into prototypes.

Wireframe wall · 8 home concepts
E-01Small, cheap, many.
Direction A · Loyalty-first
E-02Card upfront. Menu second.
Direction B · Menu-first
E-03Café-counter mental model.
Step 03 · Iterations

Prototype, test, tighten.

Three rounds of usability testing with 5 users each. Cuts after every round.

v1 · home
I-01Round 1.
v2 · home
I-02Round 2.
v3 · home
I-03Final.
Solution

A coffee app that opens like a menu, not a form.

03 · 04

One screen, three jobs: scan a card, order ahead, see what’s new — laid out the way a regular’s morning actually goes.

Hero · Home + Scan + Today
UI 01The home screen — three jobs in one view.
Menu · Categories
UI 02Menu mirrors the counter.
Item · Customisation
UI 03Plain text, no jargon.
Loyalty · Card
UI 04Loyalty as a glance, not a tab.
Pickup · Café picker
UI 05Where, when, how — answered upfront.
Receipt · Done
UI 06Done state stays warm.
Impact

Results, in the first season.

35K
App downloads in the first season after launch.
×2.4
Increase in repeat orders for app users vs. walk-ins.
4.7
Average store rating · iOS & Android combined.
18s
Median time to place a re-order from app launch.
Reflection

What I’d carry forward.

01

Constraint as direction. COVID didn’t just demand contactless — it demanded a tone. We leaned into warmth on purpose, because everything else around us was clinical.

02

Loyalty isn’t a feature. Tucked into a tab, it gets ignored. Surfaced on the home screen, it changes how regulars use the app within a week.

03

Test with baristas. Pickup logic that worked on the customer side died at the counter. We shipped two flows in parallel for two weeks before picking the winner.