The energy inside RoosRoast’s roastery is, in one word, caffeinated. 

Outside, it’s a gloomy evening. Inside: mountains of coffee beans, zany art, hot coffee and cookies. A class from the University of Michigan School of Information listens with rapt attention as John Roos, founder of RoosRoast Coffee, explains why the heck his signature coffee is called Lobster Butter Love. 

It’s totally vegan, and no shellfish either, he prefaces.

“People kept saying it tasted like butter,” he explains. “There's a French dish called lobster butter, and it’s basically a lobster that's been cooked, partially taken out of its shell and then finished in clarified butter and just served in a dish of butter.” 

John, in his uniform of a red flannel over a T-shirt, is frenetic and warm. He speaks as energetically as a car salesman — one of many jobs he’s had — only when he talks, you believe him. 

“I kept saying that over and over on my bike ride, out loud,” he continues. “I was like, lobster butter, lobster butter. And then suddenly I was like, lobster butter love, lobster butter love!” 

Free association and word of mouth have propelled RoosRoast’s growth over the past two decades — from the early days roasting beans in John’s garage, into a proper roastery with two cafés and a thriving web store. 

“The RoosRoast brand is deeply embedded in the Ann Arbor community,” says Hannah Stanton-Gockel, RoosRoast communications manager and a Master of Science in Information student at UMSI. “It’s part of people’s everyday lives, whether they come in here to have a cup of coffee every day and talk to the baristas, or whether they make coffee at home.”

Scrawled in marker on a random wall of the roastery: Make it nice for the people, because the people they LOVE!

This love didn’t diminish during the pandemic, when RoosRoast’s online sales increased by 300%, with orders coming in from all 50 states. As their online presence grew, they realized their website could no longer keep up. 

When it came time for a redesign, RoosRoast stayed local. They enlisted students in UMSI’s Laws of UX class to pitch new designs for the homepage, wholesale inquiries page and web store.

“I think the business of doing business is information nowadays,” John says. “So the challenge is, how do you take the information we're presenting and make it better?”

Students visited the roastery and café on Rosewood Street to get a feel for the RoosRoast ethos and heard directly from John, Hannah and creative director Laura Garbarz about their business goals. They then spent the semester working in teams of two to put the laws of user experience into practice for a real client. 

“We really wanted to improve their online experience,” says Bella Mai, a computer science minor and biopsychology, cognition and neuroscience major at U-M. “When you walk into a RoosRoast café, you immediately get hit with their quirky, energetic, fun vibes, and that wasn't really being translated onto their website.”

She teamed up with Emily Veguilla, a Bachelor of Science in Information student at UMSI earning a dual degree in graphic design from U-M’s Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design. 

The challenge they embraced together: How do you design a website that guides visitors seamlessly to what they’re looking for, while also allowing them to encounter the unexpected?

Designing for delight

Visiting a RoosRoast café is all about little discoveries — sure, you get the cup of coffee you came for, but you also suddenly notice a huge wooden woodpecker suspended above your head, or a random doodle on the wall. 

“We wanted to emphasize that you can still have fun while maintaining a good user experience,” Bella says. 

“A lot of websites nowadays are very minimalist, very clean, to a point where it almost feels kind of clinical,” Emily notes. She and Bella went in a different direction.

In their designs, they incorporated the bold red linocut art and homey brown of RoosRoast’s coffee bags. They paid homage to RoosRoast’s roots. For example, a banner on their redesigned homepage displays the text, ‘30-12-6, get your coffee fix!’ — a callback to John’s early days roasting coffee, when people could pick up coffee in a box, but only if they knew the code. 

“They integrated those little tiny things that our audience would recognize and know,” Hannah says. “Bella and Emily's designs were really remarkable and stood out to us because they so clearly understood this idea of delightfulness, and references to things that live in the RoosRoast collective memory.” 

The design process involved plenty of trial and error — they tested at least 10 distinct designs before landing on a final product. “I think it’s really great to go in with every idea you have and then narrow them down from there,” Emily says. “You never know what’s going to come out of the silliest design ideas, so don’t be afraid to try new things.” 

This spirit is reminiscent of John Roos, who made a few ill-fated but creative coffee roasting attempts — one involving a hairdryer — before he perfected his approach. When the process is filled with play, the product will be, too. 

“They picked up on what we actually do,” John says of Emily and Bella’s designs. 

For lecturer James Rampton, who teaches Laws of UX at UMSI, this is a big win. “In the class, we talk about how to tell a good visual story, and it was really clear that students took that to heart,” he says. 

He enjoys connecting students with clients in his courses because it allows them to develop impressive projects for their portfolios while navigating realistic challenges. Meanwhile, clients receive free deliverables to address the information challenges they face.

“To have 25 website designs by creative, brilliant students presented to us in such a thoughtful way — where it was clear they really listened to what our problems were, what we wanted out of a website — has been immensely helpful for RoosRoast and for our team,” Hannah says.  

As RoosRoast implements the new designs, “I think we're going to see a lot better customer service, No. 1, through the website,” John says. “A lot more clarity, less confusion and possibly more orders, more business.” 

If the experience of hosting a course project were a coffee blend, it would be — in John’s words — “really, really smooth.” 

For students who took the course, the feeling is mutual. “It’s great to work on projects with clients outside of Michigan, and it’s great to work on mock projects, but having something so close to home is really special,” Emily says. “You can say, down the line, ‘Hey, RoosRoast over there, I redesigned their website one time.’”

And Bella, who doesn’t even drink coffee, now waxes poetic about Lobster Butter Love. 

“They’re adding so much joy to a seemingly everyday task. Drinking Lobster Butter coffee, Lobster Love coffee, Lobster Butter Love coffee — that’s what it is,” she laughs. “It’s fun.” 

—Abigail McFee, marketing and communications writer;
video and photos by Jeffrey Smith, multimedia producer

LEARN MORE

Client-based courses provide UMSI students with high-impact learning experiences. Students gain confidence communicating with a client, while developing deliverables they can include in their portfolios. Learn more. 

Organizations from all industries and sectors are invited to propose information-based projects for students to work on through client-based courses, capstone projects and community-based programs. Host a student project.