It all started when UMICH Lecturer James Rampton, who teaches SI 311: Laws of UX, said "Hey RoosRoast! I have an idea."
His idea was pretty cool: Become a client for James' winter semester class and RoosRoast will come away with 25 website redesigns. The prefrontal cortex part of our brain(s) tingled with creative energy at the very thought.
Now for the part of the story that is disappointingly void of drama: The RoosCrew Creative Team agreed, immediately and enthusiastically.
With nothing to lose and many ideas to be gained, we invited James Rampton's extraordinary students to come hang out at Rosewood for a few hours one winter evening, get late-night caffeinated and listen to the hows, whats, and whys of RoosRoast Coffee.
Students stared in wonder (or obligatory observation) as we shared our deepest website desires and admitted to a number of challenges that had us stumped. A RoosRoast webstore aught to feel as fun and vibrant and delightful as visiting the cafes feels. We wanted it feel like a journey, a pilgrimage - with surprises and adventures along the way.
But how do we achieve this?
UMSI visits Rosewood
Pictured: Students of SI 311 learning all about coffee production at RoosRoast.
(photo from this article.)
Let's go back in time.
RoosRoast's website started waaaaay back in 2007, and was totally lo-fi in comparison to the spiffy roosroast.com of today. Back then the website had photos of the latest single origins and a robust blog, chronicling the shenanigans of a coffee-obsessed guy who roasted in the Yellow Barn before the health department shut him down in between shifts at Subaru.
The content itself isn't much different from today, really. There were entries chronically the Ann Arbor Film Festival, Farmer's Market days, Rosewood cafe info and single origin details. It was a simpler time, pre-pandemic and with a few dedicated web order-ers (who were very ahead of the curve).
A retro website and the art of a small coffee roasting business.
Screenshots of RoosRoast's website back in 2007 - a mix of photos, artwork, details about a youthful biz and John Roos' storytelling!
No surprise that the RoosRoast voice, visuals, and vibe was strong from the beginning.
Plus, the Yellow Barn to jog your memory.
The cafe experience was notable too. Dare we say Rosewood became something of a destination on Ann Arbor's Southside.
The bar back when the cafe was smaller and Rosewood was home to Harves' Electronics & 7 Cylinders Studio!
Thus, the brand was branding.
Or more likely, John Roos was just being John Roos. We do know that the coffee was roasting, brewing and drinking by the many ounces and pounds.
And then there was a pandemic. Remember that? Wild.
And the webstore? Well, the webstore blew up!! Webland was flooded with orders overnight and suddenly, RoosRoast had an entire online store shipping coffee to all fifty states every single day!
Maureen the Webstore Queen packaging up coffee bean orders circa 2020.
And this extremely abbreviated synopsis brings us to today: We're ready to level up roosroast.com.
Fortunately for us, UMICH's School of Information needs local clients for school projects.**
Standout students Bella Mai and Emily Verguilla reinvented roosroast.com by incorporating Easter eggs (aka surprises) callbacks to the past, and rethinking the wholesale and ordering process to make it easier and better while keeping it weird. Thanks Bella and Emily!
The School of Information made a whole video about the process and you should watch it:
So keep your eye on roosroast.com as we add innovative new features, more artwork, and turn it all into the next version of the RoosRoast webstore.
If we do a particularly cool thing and you dig it, let us know! We'd love to hear.
**Yes, you too could become a client and have all your website/app problems solved by brilliant UofM students!
Click here to read more about that and tell them RoosRoast sent you.