Design Diaries: The Flow of GrindLab
The flow of every user interface (UI) shapes the entire user experience. Every tap, swipe, and glance is part of a journey toward a user's goal. Good UI flow makes that journey feel natural—so natural the user barely notices it. Poor flow, on the other hand, shifts the focus from the experience to the interface itself. People rarely delete an app because the idea is fundamentally bad—they delete it because they feel lost, overwhelmed, or stuck. The question remained: how can I distill the inherently complex process in GrindLab into a simple, frictionless user journey? That's why flow has been at the center of my mind—and yet, it's still very much a work in progress.
Principles in Practice#
I focused on a few core principles when creating the user interface. The first was progressive disclosure. By necessity, there are twelve unique views in GrindLab. When the user opens the app, there are only two options: select a grind type to begin a new analysis or view your analysis history. Instead of bombarding a user with options, the app displays only what is necessary to complete the current task.
Another guiding principle was the idea of one primary action per screen. Each view in GrindLab should have a single purpose. The camera view is for capturing, the results view is for interpreting, and the notes view is for saving insights. By resisting the urge to overload a screen with options, the app hopefully maintains clarity and momentum. GrindLab should follow a loop: Camera → Results → Retake or Save → back to Camera. This rhythm reinforces the app's purpose and keeps attention where it belongs.
Areas of Improvement#
In its current state, the app still has rough edges. The best next step isn't always as discoverable as it should be, and the next page sometimes feels more like a fork in the road than a connected journey.
Perhaps the biggest challenge is the complexity of the view hierarchy. In some areas, it's simply too nested. For example, when adding tasting notes to a new analysis, the camera view ends up buried deep in a large ZStack. This makes the UI harder to reason about—both for me as the developer and for the user trying to navigate back. It works, but it feels heavier and far more cumbersome than it should.
Flattening the view hierarchy will be key to improving flow, and it is currently my top priority. The challenge will be accomplishing this without adding complexity to the parent views.
Beyond GrindLab#
Flow isn't something you design once and declare finished—it's something that evolves as the app is used. GrindLab's flow is serviceable today, but it can, should, and will be better. Each iteration, each round of feedback, sharpens the journey a little more.
The lessons learned from designing GrindLab's flow extend well beyond coffee analysis. Whether you're building a productivity tool, a creative app, or a utility, the same truth applies: users don't just interact with your features—they also experience the journey between them. Progressive disclosure and single-purpose screens aren't just design patterns; they're acknowledgments of how human attention actually works. We can only focus on one thing at a time, and we learn best when complexity reveals itself gradually.
The temptation to showcase everything your app can do is strong, especially when you've poured months into building those capabilities. But restraint is what separates an app that gets opened from one that gets used. Every additional option, every nested view, every fork in the road is a moment where a user might lose their way—or worse, lose interest.
Flow isn't about making things simple; it's about making complex things feel simple. And that's a design challenge worth grinding over.