HelloHacks
2025
Cafeverse: Cafe Ranking App
Designed a website that allows you to rank your favourite coffee shops.
Overview
CafeVerse is a café-rating website that unites local café enjoyers.
Inspired by the rise of ranking apps like Beli and Letterbox'd, CafeVerse was designed to foster a sense community through authentic reviews of local brews. Our target users are Gen-Z individuals (18-27) who regularly visit cafés, and are looking to support small local businesses.
Approach
The latest café opening has become Gen Z's favourite icebreaker.
This is a trend I've noticed in conversations with my friends and acquaintances. Our shared enthusiasm for caffeine is actually what brought my team together. With the rise of TikTok and Instagram, viral spots to get your daily beverage fix has become an interpersonal touchpoint amongst strangers. What if there was a way to rank your favourite cafes?
Research
Is there a viable business opportunity for a café-ranking app?
University students (18-25) showed general excitement about a prospective café-rating app. Many cited their frustration with finding study spots on campus in interviews.
On the contrary, older industry mentors (35-50) were extremely confused about the business potential of a café-rating app. These individuals showed little interest in community-building potential of café culture in interviews.
In a fact-sheet produced by Claude, I discovered that Gen Z's unique experience with isolation as a result of a global pandemic has resulted in an increase in loneliness, despite being more digitally connected than ever. 55% say loneliness has worsened since the pandemic.
In conducting our competitive analysis, we discovered a growing trend of ranking apps, and Gen Z's appeal towards using them. Some examples include Beli, Letterboxd, and GoodReads. Beli would be the closest competitor (ranking app for restaurants), but it does not provide incentives for users and local businesses.
Problem
Roadblock
Initially, we wanted to design an app for matcha consumption.
My group's beverage of choice was matcha, and we initially wanted to capitalize on the drink's rising popularity on social media. However, we determined that there was a greater business opportunity for a café-ranking app, so MatchaVerse became CafeVerse.
We also received a lot of pushback from our mentors for CafeVerse's business potential. However, we decided to firmly believe in CafeVerse's potential to appeal to Gen-Z audiences, as our mentors were not our target users. Our peers were excited about our app idea, and that proved that we were on the right path.
Prototype
Here are three screens I designed for CafeVerse.
We were inspired by pixel art (specifically Stardew Valley), which became the design inspiration for CafeVerse.
Click here for the live prototype.
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Lessons
Criticism towards a well-researched design solution should be taken with a grain of salt. Believe in your team's ability to understand your target user.
CafeVerse received a lot of pushback during the ideation phase due to the project's feasibility from a business standpoint, which was a difficult mental roadblock for my team. Our mentors were not part of our target demographic, which made it difficult to argue our project's feasibility.
However, after grounding our work in more research, we decided to firmly believe in CafeVerse's potential to appeal to Gen-Z audiences. However, it was intimidating going against the opinions of industry professionals. Believing in your team's design approach can truly make or break a product's success.
Our developer Gaida also developed a live version of CafeVerse within 48h. A big shoutout to Isabel Cima, Gaida Amzar, and Ivenka Xie for being the most dedicated teammates, and making my first hackathon so special.
