Our Sponsor
David Pierre-Louis, the CEO of Haiti Coffee, i created Haiti Coffee Co. with the goal of reviving the Haitian economy, and to help farmers and entrepreneurs grow their potential markets, increase their incomes, and improve production.
David Pierre-Louis, the CEO of Haiti Coffee, i created Haiti Coffee Co. with the goal of reviving the Haitian economy, and to help farmers and entrepreneurs grow their potential markets, increase their incomes, and improve production.
We began working with Haiti Coffee Co. early January and over the past 5 months, our product and vision for this project has gone through many iterations and changed shape and structure numerous times. The goals of this project have remained to 1) enhance the visibility of the Haitian Coffee industry with farm-to-cup transparency and 2) create a digital platform that connects the entire Haitian coffee ecosystem, from farmers to roasters to consumers. We are executing these goals through building a custom Shopify theme that serves as an online community to connect every stakeholder in the Haitian Coffee Industry. This theme is customizable, so after completion of this project Haiti Coffee will be able to update and style their website with very minimal programming.
We envisioned many target users because the website is meant to be a place to bring a lot of different people with a lot of different backgrounds together. The graphic above demonstrates just some of the many stakeholders that are involved through the whole coffee supply chain. There are dozens of steps between picking the coffee cherries and a consumer grinding up the beans. This website provides the ability for every group along that supply chain to connect right back to the farmers. Certain parts of the website were designed with specific consumer groups in mind. For example, the collections and product pages were designed and tested for millenials that spent over $20 a week on coffee.
As we developed the theme, we came to the realization that another major user could be small business owners. We’re developing a Shopify theme that will allow small businesses to deliver the impact that an UX designer, Content Strategist, or Marketing Manager might have on a team. In doing this, we’re coding the functionalities that allow our sponsor to drag, drop, and customize features that are dynamic and flexible to their organization’s narrative. We want to make the experience of telling an organization’s story, while maintaining an e-commerce platform seamless and easy to use. With limited manpower, resources, and knowledge, small businesses that host on Shopify will benefit incredibly from the ease of use of our theme, which will ultimately allow them to leverage the power of Shopify’s features.
Coffee plays an important role in Haiti’s economy and this project will contribute to Haiti Coffee’s goal of revitalizing the Haitian Coffee industry. Our user research sample of over 600 people showed 53% know little to nothing about the coffee production process and over 60% didn’t know where their coffee comes from. Farmers have recently been going sometimes years without breaking even on their coffee operations. The site will be a source of information to help build advocacy for the coffee industry in general. As consumers are educated more about the industry, they can make well informed purchase decisions in the future.
Specifically for Haiti Coffee, this site will give them a platform to share information to their community through a blog. They also will be able to use a separate blog to deliver information to farmers about topics ranging from coffee planting procedures to microloan support!
Finally, this theme is able to be utilized by other small business to achieve their own business outcomes. The theme is tailored to a small business seeking to engage with their community and suppliers through informational blog posts.
Hi! I am a senior at the University of Washington double majoring in Informatics and Business!
Hi! I’m a senior in the Informatics program and I am passionate about collaborating with, leading, and empowering others.
Hi! I'm a senior at the University of Washington in Informatics focusing on Data Science and Information Architect!
Hi! I am a senior at University of Washington studying Informatics focused on frontend software development!
With the help of University of Washington's Informatics program, we are geared to accomplish this task through the plethora of technology offered to us, the excellent staff, and the diverse skills each student brings to the table.