Our Team
Mentors
Eric Richards: Design Mentor
Jean Ly: Marketing Mentor
Joanna Lam: Marketing Mentor
Table of Contents
**Café X: By Any Beans Necessary** is a family-owned, Black woman-owned co-operative (shortened as co-op) coffee shop built to support generational wealth building in the Black community and other marginalized communities. We do this by developing cross-sector partnerships with community-based organizations and individuals; sustaining creative and artistic projects; and developing the next generation of leaders to generate a social, cultural, and economic movement that changes the quality of life in our communities - one cup at a time (Source).
Owners of Café X: By Any Beans Necessary, Cynthia (left) and Khea (right)
Currently, Café X has two websites — a main one for their **business** (on Squarespace), and another for their e-commerce store (on Square). We first examined both websites to understand the user experience and identity any expectations for content. We then conducted usability testing on 4 users, who were all first-time visitors of the website and did not know about the business before.
Most users had similar first impressions of Café X; some described the co-op business as:
“A space for discussing issues and politics that affect the Black community, as well as a space for Black artists.”
"An inclusive space for Black folks in San Diego... sells more than coffee and does more than just coffee. It’s a community movement.”