Kellie Huang
Selva is a local cafe in Mission Valley. What started as a fun addition to Terra Bella Nursery quickly blew up on social media as a coffee hotspot. Despite their aesthetic interior which has attracted hundreds of customers, their digital presence was lacking in reflection of their in-person experience.
My Role:
Product Designer
Year:
2025
Tools:
Figma
Service Provided:
Product Design, Web Design
Initial Findings
🌱 User surveys for frequent and first time customers showed that 14/16 people expressed that the Selva website felt disconnected from their in-person ambience. They wanted to see menu items displayed on their website, which has not been added in their current design.
🌱 Their shop uses bright colors like pink and green decorative interior to connect with their plant nursery company, Terra Bella Nursery. Their current website lacked these colors and visual elements, making the site look too simple and unwelcoming.
Therefore, How Might We Transform Selva’s Physical Experience Into A Digital Platform That Communicates Its Unique Atmosphere And Drives Customer Loyalty?
One of our first initiatives were to create a design system so that Selva's website would have consistent spacing throughout their website. We selectively picked out a color palette that would best represent Selva's theme of brightness and plants. Our font selection also had rounded styles that made the site feel softer and more welcoming.
To better understand how we can improve Selva's digital experience, we conducted a competitive analysis with local cafés in San Diego and also food business websites that had strong visual branding. We took notes on interactive elements that each business had on their website to know what content and structure could be applied to Selva's. We presented our findings to our client in a presentaton:
As we moved from lo-fi designs to higher fidelity prototypes, we made sure to incorporate more images of Selva into the website. This allows users to get a glimpse of the enviornment, an improvement from their original website which only included an image of their coffee. We also began implementing more colors and visual elements, like plants and flowers, to really encapsulate the overall theme of the shop.
A Look Into Our Workspace, From Lo-fis to Hi-fis!
🪴 Planting Selva's Digital Space
Our team aimed to recreate Selva's distinctive experience into a digitized space. With the collaboration of 3 other designers, we worked for over 3 months brainstorming the vision for Selva's website to refining the various design pages for our finalized prototype. Selva is one of the most popular coffee shops in San Diego with their extensive menu that has drawn many tourists in San Diego to grab a cup of latte or their iced pistachio matcha. Their shop, which is located inside a plant nursery store, gives customers a unique in-person experience where they can stroll through the aesthetic nature setting with their delicious drink. As more users begin looking online for coffee shop recommendations, it is very important that Selva has an official site that will attract more customers.
🌷 Takeaways
As a café enjoyer myself, I felt very fortunate that I was able to work with a client that specialized in coffee making! Working for a popular café spot in San Diego was very motivating, and I am very proud of my team for spending long nights to flush out the design system, design lo-fi to hi-fi prototypes, and creating various components to make our final design as interactive as possible for future website implementation!
