Costa Express 5 Year Roadmap

COSTA EXPRESS 5 YEAR PRODUCT ROADMAP

Lead UX designer on the five year product roadmap development for Costa Express

THE CHALLENGEWe were tasked with helping Costa Express develop a five year product roadmap to help future-proof their business and respond to customer expectations and technical developments.

The challenge was to ensure that any new ideas enhanced the current experience without putting at risk the things that existing customers love about Costa Express.

MY ROLE
My role in the project was to lead all of the UX design deliverables and work with the Strategy Director and wider team to dictate the direction of the project and help steer the client.

THE APPROACH
The approach to this piece of work was to start very broad with no ideas off the table, before refining them down to a group of achievable features that would form the product roadmap.

I needed to ensure that we fully understood the needs and goals of existing customers, how they behaved when they were at the machine and what they think would improve the experience.

The research was split across two areas of the UK. A colleague conducted the London research and I hit the road to conduct research in the midlands and north of England. I visited a range of Costa Express partner sites including service stations, petrol stations and supermarkets. The research consisted of passive observation, contextual questions and proposition questions.

KEY FINDINGS INCLUDED

Customers loved the simplicity of the machines and were keen to tell us that any new features should not complicate the existing experience
There was some frustration that they couldn't redeem loyalty points at the machine
Customers were habitual and often drank the same coffee every visit but wanted to personalise
A method of being recognised by the machine so they could quickly order their regular coffees was mentioned by many participants

KEY FINDINGS INCLUDED:

Features that added extra personalisation options were popular with customers
Smoother payment methods would help the user experience
Ordering a Costa Coffee with your Uber ride was a specific feature that performed well

Once I had the results of the client workshop and the inputs from the ethnographic research it was time to test some of the features and propositions with customers. The research took the form of qualitative group discussions with the three segments represented as well as two groups of non-customers.

The features were grouped into high-level themes and displayed on large boards which were used as props to stimulate discussion and explain each feature to the participants. The feedback we received was crucial to deciding which features to progress forward with.

We also used the sessions to get more quantitative feedback from the groups. At the end of each session we asked participants to place post-it notes against the features they liked and disliked.

This gave use some solid data to back up the feedback we had been given during the discussions. These preferences were then mapped into the chart below where we could quickly see what features were most popular across the four segments.

Based on our research findings a list of features were drawn up. They were then plotted against business impact and technical complexity.

This then gave us the data we needed to draw up a feature roadmap for the product.

At this point in the project the CEO asked to see an update on progress. We decided to showcase some of the features we were proposing using short videos that bring the full customer experience to life. I produced some simple wireframe drawings and storyboards that were given to the creative teams who created the script and worked with the production company to deliver the end product shown below.

CLIENT WORKSHOP

Our Chief Strategy Officer led the ideation process by hosting a workshop with the client to explore as many ideas as possible that might move the product forward in the future.

This was done using a Life Lens (right) with high level themes and moving out from the middle the themes become more specific.

This was used to stimulate idea generation without restricting the thinking. I helped to moderate this workshop and ideate with the client to generate ideas.

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

QUALITATIVE RESEARCH TO TEST NEW FEATURES

PRESENTING TO THE CEO

The first feature that has moved into delivery is the personalisation feature that allows customers to open the existing Costa app and choose their favourite Costa Express drinks, personalised to their taste so they can order them quicker when they arrive at the machine.

I worked with a UI designer to create all of the screens required in the journey and mapped them against a user flow shown below. The video shows the full user journey and how the machine recognises the customer and receives their personalisation data.

DELIVERING THE FIRST FEATURE ON THE ROADMAP