Melting Experience

Climate change poses a real threat to global coffee cultivation, particularly since many of the farming businesses are very small in scale. Melting Experience, a multi-award-winning digital design studio in Hamburg, developed a progressive web app toolbox with the Initiative for coffee&climate, aiming to give coffee farmers around the world the tools they need for climate-adapted cultivation. It brings easily accessible and always up-to-date knowledge about climate-resilient coffee cultivation directly to the plantations in Colombia, Brazil and Indonesia.

Interview with Boris Juhl

Red Dot: What were your biggest challenges in designing the coffee&climate toolbox?

We didn’t just want to digitise knowledge. The idea was to also structure this knowledge so that it is equally understandable to everyone, from farmers in Brazil to smallholders in Uganda – whatever their knowledge level, hardware or local internet service. The biggest hurdle was to achieve global standardisation without losing regional relevance. This meant listening, testing, simplifying – and constantly drawing on the input from the global coffee&climate team to make improvements.

Two key design requirements were low usage barriers and global comprehensibility. How did you achieve them?

We thought in visuals instead of long texts, used icons from the farmers’ everyday lives, and relied on animated videos and clear step-by-step instructions. AI helps us to translate all the tools into currently seven languages, and local experts adapt the content to the cultural contexts. This allows us to put expertise into a toolbox that can be immediately used in any language and region – without barriers and with real impact.

How did you design the user interface to be appealing and also to engage users?

We wanted the design to feel like a good day on the plantation: warm, clear, inviting. It incorporates earthy colours, bold contrasts for legibility in the sun, organic shapes inspired by the coffee fields and simple navigation elements. This encourages the user to explore, scroll and experiment, and then ultimately to put the knowledge into practice in the field.

How does an e-learning app like this stay up to date given the dynamics of real developments, even in coffee cultivation?

We put every new research result and every practical field insight into our toolbox. A modular structure makes it possible for the Initiative for coffee&climate’s local agronomists and climate experts to update and add content in real time. Our AI-supported translations ensure that farmers around the world have access to new insights and solutions on their smartphones in a matter of weeks. And we’re already working on additional innovative features for the coffee&climate toolbox.