Ruelle Coffee

Project Context

Ruelle is a coffee and bakery brand selling specialty coffee alongside handcrafted stuffed croissants and French artisanal pastries baked daily. Almost nobody researches a café the way they research a service: the site is opened on a phone, usually nearby, usually within a minute of deciding to go somewhere. Its job is to make that decision fast and make the place findable.

Target Users

• Nearby visitors deciding where to go in the next few minutes, on a phone
• People checking what the bakery actually serves before travelling to it
• Visitors who found the brand through social media and want to confirm it is a real place with a real location
• Returning customers looking only for opening details or the location

Main User Journey

1. Land on a phone, usually from social media or a map search
2. See what the place is within the first screen: coffee, bakery, or both
3. Look at the menu to check it serves what they came for
4. Look at the space itself, because atmosphere is part of the decision for a café
5. Find the location and go

Constraints

• Two identities in one brand — specialty coffee and an artisanal bakery — neither of which could be reduced to a subtitle of the other
• A phone-first audience deciding in under a minute, which rules out a long scroll before the menu
• Photography supplied by the client as the main content, so the layout had to be built around images rather than around copy
• Menu items change, so the presentation could not assume a fixed list length

My Role

• UI/UX Design, React Development, Brand Integration, Responsive Design, Visual Content Optimization

Key Work

• Brand storytelling & menu showcase
• Location & gallery sections
• Responsive experience
• Strong visual identity

UX & Design Decisions

• The first screen says what the place is rather than opening with a brand statement, because a visitor deciding in under a minute is answering "is this what I want" and nothing else
• The menu is reachable without a page load, since it is the single most requested piece of information on a café site
• Photography is treated as content, not decoration: the gallery shows the space and the products because atmosphere is what a visitor is actually judging
• The location sits at the end of the scroll and in reach from the top, because it is the last thing a visitor needs and the only thing a returning visitor needs
• Layout is built mobile-first, with the desktop version derived from it rather than the other way round

Technologies & Tools