Designing an In-Hospital Delivery Experience for Costa
Role
UX Designer
Timeline
3 months → Test Trial → Pilot Engagement
Team
Costa Coffee x NHS
Process
Research → UX → Strategy → UI Design
Bringing the Costa experience directly to customers
Overview
As part of Costa’s “Coffee to You” growth initiative, the Closed-Site Delivery experience extended Costa’s digital ordering ecosystem into hospital environments, enabling staff, patients, and visitors to order directly to their location.
The pilot explored how Costa could extend its existing digital ordering experience into NHS sites, creating a more accessible service while unlocking a potential new revenue opportunity.
When Leaving the Ward Isn’t an Option
The Challenge
How could Costa extend its digital ordering experience to better serve customers within hospital environments?
Hospitals introduced a unique challenge: NHS staff working long shifts had limited opportunities to leave their departments, patients faced accessibility barriers, and visitors often found large hospital sites difficult to navigate.
The opportunity was to create a delivery experience that adapted to the realities of healthcare — making ordering simpler, more accessible, and easier to use when time and convenience matter most.
What we learned
Designing Around Hospital Reality
Through stakeholder conversations and insights from MUK University Hospital, we identified three key user needs:
Speed Matters
Staff needed to complete an order quickly without disrupting their shift during working hours at the ward.
Location Matters
Hospitals aren’t typical delivery addresses. Users needed to select specific wards, departments, or collection points.
Visibility Matters
Customers needed confidence that their order was being prepared and delivered for great service to feel welcomed.
These insights shaped the experience around three principles:
Fast. Simple. Reliable.The Solution
Extending the Costa Experience
Rather than redesigning the Costa app, the goal was to create a lightweight extension that felt familiar to existing users.
The experience focused on reducing friction at every step.
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Easy Access to Delivery
A dedicated home feed that helps customers discover Closed-Site Delivery and with additional guidance on how the service works.
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Hospital-Specific Locations
Customers could easily find and select their available pick-up points, creating a smoother ordering experience tailored to the hospital environment.
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Clear Delivery Process
Customers could easily track their order progress, providing visibility and reassurance throughout the delivery journey.
Validation
Identifying Opportunities to Improve Tracking
Testing with hospital staff revealed that delivery updates could be easier to notice during busy moments. The feedback informed opportunities to improve delivery status visibility, information hierarchy, and notifications to create a more reliable tracking experience.
Outcome
Expanding Customer Access Through Digital Delivery
The pilot demonstrated how Costa’s digital experience could reach customers beyond traditional locations.
What this unlocked:
✓ A new way for customers to access Costa within healthcare environments
✓ An opportunity to extend Costa’s digital ordering ecosystem
✓ Potential for future growth through new delivery contexts
Reflection
Designing for Real-World Complexity and Constraints
This project reinforced that effective UX is shaped by the context in which people use a product. Designing for hospitals required balancing simplicity, accessibility, and operational constraints to create an experience that worked for real-world needs.
The key takeaway was that adapting an existing digital experience requires more than replicating familiar patterns — it requires understanding the people, environment, and challenges behind each interaction.
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