A limited digital experience
Context
The Starbucks Argentina app allowed users to check and collect Stars, manage a Starbucks Card, and find nearby stores. However, unlike the brand’s international experiences, it did not include advance ordering, product customization, or a fully digital purchase journey.
While users were already accustomed to ordering, paying, and managing purchases through food-service apps, the local product still functioned mainly as an extension of the in-store experience.
Problem
The digital experience gave users few reasons to return. Beyond its limited functionality, users had difficulty signing in or staying signed in, understanding the rewards system, and finding the most important actions.
The interface had weak visual hierarchy, and promotions, benefits, and updates lacked visibility. As a result, the app was perceived as not very useful, confusing, and disconnected from everyday consumption habits.
Key
pain points
Limited usefulness
Users could not place advance orders, customize drinks, or complete a purchase flow in the app.
Unreliable access
Sign-in errors and frequent logouts undermined trust.
Hard-to-understand benefits
The Stars system did not clearly explain what could be redeemed or when a reward was available.
Weak visual hierarchy
Key features, promotions, and updates were not prioritized.
Redesigning without losing what the brand already had
Design
opportunities
The challenge was to reorganize and expand an existing experience, while respecting the identity of an established brand.
The redesign needed to bring the local experience closer to current user expectations: greater autonomy, faster processes, visible benefits, and a smoother connection between the app and the physical store.
Modernize
Update the interface and align it with Starbucks’ contemporary visual language.
Reorganize
Build a clearer architecture with direct access to orders, promotions, Stars, and stores.
Optimize the flow
Reduce steps and guide users from registration through payment and order pickup.
A complete experience
The solution
The concept transformed the app into an experience capable of guiding users from sign-in through purchase. The redesign integrated registration and profile management, the menu, customized orders, digital payments, benefits, rewards, and relevant content into a single journey.
The new interface aimed to simplify frequent actions, provide greater control, and connect the digital experience with pickup or consumption in the store.
Simpler registration and profile management.
A clear, accessible menu.
Customized digital ordering.
Reliable payments and reloads.
Visible benefits and promotions.
Research, organize, test, and iterate
Research process
The project combined market research, analysis of the existing experience, interviews, surveys, heuristic evaluation, and information architecture testing. We then developed the main user journeys, wireframes, and visual system, incorporating validation rounds with Maze and A/B testing.
117
initial responses to the exploratory survey.
27
participants in the usability test conducted with Maze.
10
participants in the navbar A/B test, five for each version.
Key
findings
Research showed that coffee was already part of many people’s routines, but Starbucks remained an occasional purchase. Low app adoption was not caused by rejection of the brand or digital tools, but by the fact that the current experience did not offer enough value to become part of users’ daily lives.
Users expected a faster, more functional app with advance ordering, clear information, and benefits they could easily understand and use.
Nearly 90% drink coffee regularly, but only 13% purchase Starbucks frequently.
More than 50% had never used the app.
69% would use an improved version if it were faster, more functional, and clearer.
89% still place their orders directly in the store.
The acceptable waiting time was between 5 and 10 minutes.
Users were not rejecting the brand: they were rejecting a digital experience that did not yet simplify their routine.
Analyzing competitors and established habits
Benchmark
We analyzed Café Martínez, Havanna, Tea Connection, and McDonald’s to understand how they handled navigation, ordering, and benefits programs. We also included Rappi and PedidosYa as references for purchase journeys already familiar to Argentine users.
The analysis showed that some products had a polished visual identity but offered limited functionality; others supported complete orders but presented too many elements or weak hierarchy.
The opportunity was to combine familiar navigation, efficient ordering, visible benefits, and a visual experience consistent with Starbucks.
Turning evidence into design criteria
Research synthesis
Interviews and surveys confirmed that users valued being able to pay and check their Stars, but needed more reasons to return to the app. They asked for visible promotions, advance ordering, greater stability, and a clearer explanation of benefits.
Based on these findings, we defined four criteria to guide the redesign.
Autonomy
Enable users to order, pay, and redeem benefits without depending on the counter.
Clarity
Prioritize important information and use easily recognizable labels.
Personalization
Remember preferences, favorite drinks, and frequent orders.
Trust
Include confirmations and error messages that help users resolve problems.
Task flow
and wireflow
With the architecture defined, we developed flows for the main tasks: registering, setting preferences, placing an order, customizing a drink, adding a payment method, choosing a store, and using benefits.
The wireflows helped identify friction before moving into visual interface design. They also showed the value of adding preferences from the start: selecting favorite drinks could create shortcuts and simplify future orders.
Usability testing
with Maze
The Maze usability test evaluated four tasks: registration, digital ordering, adding a card, and using a coupon.
A total of 27 people participated, and 15 completed every task. The overall experience was understood, but detours and misclicks showed that some flows needed clearer guidance.
Registration: 75% success. The primary button needed greater visibility.
Digital ordering: 82.4% success. Some users arrived through alternative routes.
Adding a card: 100% success, although users confused the Starbucks Card with a bank card.
Using a coupon: 100% success and the fastest, most direct flow.
Based on the results, we enlarged and prioritized the registration entry point, added feedback during the ordering process, and replaced ambiguous labels such as “Payments” with more explicit terms. We also simplified the longest flows and visually reinforced the primary actions to guide users more effectively.
Wireframe evolution
The first low-fidelity prototype contained too much information and text, which caused distraction and made the reload process more complex. The navigation also made it difficult to identify the primary action quickly.
After testing, we removed secondary content, simplified the interface, and incorporated the validated navigation bar. We then carried these decisions into the high-fidelity prototype, applying the final visual identity and strengthening the hierarchy.
The result was a more coherent, modern, and easy-to-navigate interface.
A new, consistent system
Design system
and UI kit
The visual system was built with SoDo Sans, and a palette based on Starbucks greens and warm tones associated with coffee. Styles were defined for buttons, cards, forms, images, illustrations, and iconography.
The interface used four columns and a 10 px base grid, with 15 px side margins and a 20 px gutter between columns. This structure maintained alignment and consistency across screens.
A clearer, more useful, and more approachable app
Final prototype
The final concept sought to reconnect Starbucks’ digital experience with the current habits and expectations of its users.
The new interface guides people from registration through purchase, integrating rewards, digital payments, customized orders, and relevant content. Core features gained greater visibility, and flows were simplified to reduce uncertainty and waiting times.
The result is a concept that modernizes the experience, reorganizes information, and optimizes the purchase flow, strengthening the relationship between the brand and its customers.
Project created in collaboration with Agustina Mosquera, Martina Sarramone, Sofía Cordeu, and Sofía Picech.
