How to make a coffee accessible: Lavazza's apps

It's seven in the morning. A parent holds their child in their arms and, with their free hand, tries to activate the coffee machine from the app.

The phone balanced precariously, their thumb reaching wherever it can, one eye on the screen and one on the baby. A tap that misses, and they start over.

In that moment, the parent runs into barriers similar to those people with a disability face: here, created by the situation. It happens to everyone, several times a day: when your hands are full, for example.

Getting a coffee without obstacles: the Lavazza project

For many people, morning coffee is a small ritual: a gesture repeated the same way every day, a moment of pause before everything begins. If that gesture depends on an app, it shouldn't become an obstacle.

That's where we started with Lavazza. The goal wasn't just to make two apps compliant, but to make sure starting the coffee stayed simple for everyone: people using a screen reader, people with a permanent disability, and people who, in that moment, simply have one free hand.

The work moved on two fronts that hold together: integrating the apps with the connected coffee machines, and simplifying the flow, so reaching the cup takes fewer steps and less attention.

Project scope

1. Project activities: Remediation of mobile apps and flow retesting with hardware

2. Subject: Tablì App and Piacere Lavazza App

3. Operating systems: iOS and Android

4. Technical partner: Reply

The challenge: two apps, one piece of hardware, a chain that can't break

Lavazza's connected coffee machines are managed through two apps, the Tablì App and the Piacere Lavazza App, connected to the machine via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

This changes how the team works, because every fix has to be tested and validated along the entire chain: from the phone's operating system to the app's interface, all the way to the dialogue with the physical machine.

We can fix a button in the app, but if the command doesn't reach the machine, nothing has actually changed for the person using it.

The threshold for earning the Accessiway Digital Accessibility Badge is clear: zero critical errors and an accessibility score above 90% on both apps.

Machines on, live testing begins

Remote testing wasn't enough. A remote audit tells you whether a component is labeled correctly, but not what happens when someone picks up their phone and tries to make a coffee.

So we did it in person. Three on-site testing sessions, with the devices switched on, working side by side with Lavazza's product and development teams.

We tested the full flow:

phone → app → machine → coffee in the cup.

This on-the-ground verification, with the hardware right there, is at the heart of our Hardware & Software auditing service: the middle ground where physical and digital accessibility meet.

The results of the Lavazza project: Tablì App and Piacere Lavazza App

The numbers for Tablì App

Started at 92.31% accessibility and six critical errors.

Reached 93.71%, zero critical errors, with open issues down from 51 to 21.

Accessibility badge earned on iOS and Android in four months.

The numbers for Piacere Lavazza App

Piacere Lavazza App. Started at 90.91% and eight critical errors. Reached 93.71%, zero critical errors, open issues down from 74 to 23. Accessibility badge earned on iOS and Android in one month.

All four Accessibility Badges are publicly verifiable:

• Tablì App — iOS (EN)

• Tablì App — Android (EN)

• Piacere Lavazza App — iOS (EN)

• Piacere Lavazza App — Android (EN)

Same result, but reached in one month instead of four. How?

The ingredients of the project

The multiplier effect: when one fix counts as two

Piacere Lavazza App reached badge standard in a very short time, thanks to the touchpoint's modular structure.

This is where the work becomes an investment. Every fix made on Tablì App was already ready for Piacere Lavazza App. We didn't start from scratch: we arrived at the second audit with the fixes already written, the insights already validated, and a development team that, by then, spoke the language of accessibility.

And that capital stays available for Lavazza's future releases and new products across the ecosystem.

Building the internal team's autonomy

We didn't just hand over a list of fixes.

We helped Lavazza's teams understand the reasoning behind each fix, so they could guide their development vendor with precision: asking for the right thing, in the right way. Fewer back-and-forths, and a team that takes ownership of its own compliance over time.

Creating a shared method for testing and remediation

A method that stays. The documentation and testing methodology we leave behind don't end with these two apps: they become the team's way of working.

In Lavazza's words

— Cristina Stella, Digital Product Owner, Lavazza

Back to that coffee

Let's go back to the parent with their child in their arms, trying to make a coffee with one hand.

After the remediation, that gesture now works. Beyond improving one person's everyday moment, what matters is also what stays with Lavazza once the project ends: an internal team that knows how to recognize and champion accessibility, and a foundation of already-fixed components that every new release inherits from day one.

Accessibility stops being a project with a deadline and becomes a way of building. And Lavazza knows it: having certified both apps, they've renewed their partnership with Accessiway for new projects. The work continues.