Futured internship: Design an app for lovers of choice coffee

Gabčo, why did you decide to study Interactive Media Theory?

I hope you made some coffee, that's for a longer story. I had a degree in dental engineering before, so we almost met in a dental lab at Futured, if you needed dentures or orthodontic aids.

But already during my studies, I realized that it was pulling me away from prostheses, so I put in my application at Interactive Media Theory on MUNI. The reason was quite pragmatic: The field offered a cross-section of several areas and I wanted to try out what I would enjoy the most.

Where did you find that passion?

Already in my freshman year, I got to the topic thanks to my class work Audio User Experience, which you can easily imagine as a well-thought-out sound design that should provide a better user experience and improve interaction with, for example, mobile apps. In layman's terms: It's about putting the right sounds in the right places.

Music has always interested me, and it is in the design of mobile applications that sound is often a rather underrated tool, while at the same time it can significantly improve the user experience. And so I delved more into this topic. In the end, it turned out that now I am writing a bachelor thesis on Principles of design of sound notifications and user interface elements of mobile applications.

So here's the link with mobile apps...

Yes! Mobile applications and sound, that's two that I really enjoy and care about. So I created a portfolio and sent it to Futured.

I was really happy that you chose me. From the design team, product designer Vojta Ryšánek, who previously worked as UX Designer at Kiwi, took care of me, so he has tremendous experience and especially the desire to pass it on.

What was the topic of your internship?

We originally intended to work on an already running project, but in the end we agreed that I would try to touch all the stages needed to design a mobile application. And since I work as a barista in the Mymika cafe in Brno, I thought of making an app through which people can order a selection of coffee.

Where did you get inspired?

In the Czech Republic there are a lot of online stores that sell coffee, but none have a mobile app, so I started my research. Then, under the guidance of Vojta, I tried to design an information architecture and subsequently we were already engaged in design. I prepared the first sketches and then moved to Figma, where I designed the wireframes and the final prototype.

What did you realize during your internship?

How important it is to do research, I didn't really enjoy it until then, but thanks to Vojta, I got a different perspective on it. And most importantly, I realized that it's great to have a person with years of experience with me. I was used to studying things and then trying them out, but of course you hit the limits of a beginner. Vojta spent a lot of time on me, despite the heavy workload. We usually met once a week to go over the things I worked on in the interim.

So did it sit humanly, too?

Power! I'm grateful for the opportunity. Yeah, and when Vojta went on a trip to Denmark, he brought me a package of super coffee.

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