Case Study: The Hobbyist
Designing for the Hive
Essence // 4-Hour Research & Redesign Sprint
The Brief
Essence started as a randomized AI prompt for an urban beekeeping app, a working concept rather than a blank canvas. My job was to find out what the baseline got right, then rebuild what it got wrong. Three failures drove the redesign: fragmented navigation, contrast that failed accessibility, and a tone pitched at the wrong audience. What follows is what I kept, what I changed, and why.
Designed Hero composition and app screen, built in Figma.
The User
Over 70% of urban beekeepers run fewer than five hives. They are hobbyists between 25 and 60, pulled in by curiosity, sustainability, and an adventurous streak in the kitchen: bee pollen garnishes, propolis glazes, royal jelly desserts.
They open an app like this to learn something, not to manage a workflow. That distinction set the direction for every decision that followed.
The Pivot
The baseline had good bones: warm tones, clean typography, the featured technique front and center. What it lacked was intent.
I consolidated a fragmented navigation into a single entry point, raised body contrast to meet WCAG AA, and shifted the tone from utility app to editorial journal so the interface matched the audience it was built for.
DesignedComparison layout, annotations, and the redesigned screen. Built in Figma.
AIThe before screenshot. Raw AI output, unedited.
The Decisions
This audience browses to discover rather than searching for a known task. A single entry point removes the guesswork of which menu holds what, and lets the content do the navigating.
Hive geometry becomes a repeatable language across icons, patterns, and tags. One shape rule generates the set, so new components stay consistent without redrawing the logic each time.
Every card states whether it leads to a tool or a read before the user taps. For someone new to molecular cooking, knowing what they are walking into is the difference between trying a technique and backing out of it.
The Liquid Gold System
The palette pulls from the materiality of beeswax and raw honey rather than a generic warm scheme, so color carries the subject instead of decorating it. Fraunces gives headers and recipe titles editorial weight; Inter keeps body copy legible for a 25 to 60 age range. The result reads as somewhere worth spending time, which is what this audience came for.
Designed The full design system: type scale, color architecture, and system improvements. Built in Figma.
What I Took From It
The AI baseline could produce a competent screen. What it could not do was decide who the screen was for. Every change I made traced back to one fact from the research: this audience arrives curious, not task-driven, and an interface that rushes them loses them.
A design system can be warm, unhurried, and easy to trust, and those qualities are decisions, not accidents. That is the part of the work that still needs a designer.