UX/UI design of a mobile app prototype for expats in Barcelona, developed through a full design thinking process that began with user research and behavioral insights. By combining findings on local culture, social needs and logistical barriers with iterative ideation and structured prioritization, the project evolved into an intuitive navigation system designed to foster community connections and offer a seamless way to discover curated and authentic experiences.

The project addresses a clear challenge in Barcelona: the disconnect between international students and expats and the rich cultural and natural experiences available across Catalonia. Despite the region’s wide offer, many newcomers face barriers such as lack of local knowledge, logistical difficulties, and limited community networks. The goal was to design a digital solution that helps them discover meaningful activities, navigate the local culture, and build real connections with others

To understand the needs, motivations and barriers of international students and expats in Barcelona, I conducted mixed method research combining 10 in depth interviews and a 20 question survey answered by 120 participants. This approach provided a diverse and reliable view of user behaviours, uncovering patterns around social habits, challenges in discovering activities, and the need for cultural integration and community.

In this phase, I analyzed all qualitative data collected from interviews, surveys and observations to identify key user motivations and pain points. Through the affinity mapping process, we uncovered five behavioral patterns, and later identified strong correlations between them. These connections revealed two main user groups: Advanced Expats, who seek high-quality experiences and enjoy exploring local culture in depth, and Social Explorers, who seek shared experiences and human connection. These insights guided the design opportunities for each profile.

Building on the insights from the research phase, two distinct user groups clearly emerged, each with different motivations, expectations and barriers when exploring experiences beyond Barcelona. To translate these patterns into concrete, human-centered profiles, I created two user personas that represent the core needs and behaviours identified in the study. These personas, a culturally curious professional seeking authenticity and a socially driven newcomer looking for meaningful connections, help ground the design process in real user contexts.

This journey map outlines the end-to-end experience of an expat booking an organized trip. It follows the user from the moment they discover the activity through friends, to the decision-making and booking process, the experience itself, and finally the post-activity stage where they share feedback or leave a review. Mapping this full journey allows us to understand motivations, emotions and pain points across each phase, revealing key opportunities to improve the overall experience.

Building on the insights from the research phase, two distinct user groups clearly emerged, each with different motivations, expectations and barriers when exploring experiences beyond Barcelona. To translate these patterns into concrete, human-centered profiles, I created two user personas that represent the core needs and behaviours identified in the study. These personas, a culturally curious professional seeking authenticity and a socially driven newcomer looking for meaningful connections, help ground the design process in real user contexts.

To move from insights to actionable solutions, I selected the five most relevant How Might We questions identified during the research phase. These HMWs represent the core challenges users face and serve as lenses to guide ideation. Based on them, I generated a series of focused concepts and potential solutions aimed at addressing the key barriers uncovered in the study. This process allowed us to explore opportunities from different angles and shape early directions for the experience.

After generating a large number of proposals during the ideation phase, the next step was to synthesize the HMWs into more concrete and actionable ideas. Once defined, we mapped all ideas into an effort–benefit matrix, which allowed us to quickly visualize which ones offered the highest impact with the lowest implementation complexity.This comparative analysis helped us prioritize effectively, identifying the solutions with the strongest potential and establishing a clear foundation to move forward with the development of the final solution.

After generating, categorizing and prioritizing all ideas according to effort and expected value, we identified which concepts offered the strongest potential for the final product. This process helped focus on high-impact opportunities and define a clear direction aligned with user needs and project constraints.The outcome of this synthesis is presented in three blocks: what the solution is about, how it works and what problem it solves, providing a structured and evidence-based overview of the final proposal.

In this section, we present the sitemap that also functions as a user flow, offering a complete view of how the experience is structured. On the left side of the map we outline all content related to activities, while the right side focuses on the social dimension of the app. This dual structure was designed around the specific functions we wanted to include in each area, ensuring clarity, coherence and a seamless navigation experience for users.

Additionally, we included two explanatory cards for key sections with high-content volume. These help quantify and organize the information while also establishing them as templates, since they will be used as dynamic pages within the final product.

The wireframing process began with low-fidelity sketches, created quickly using thick markers to encourage iteration, exploration and the “right to be wrong.” This early stage allowed us to test ideas freely, adjust structures and validate flows without the pressure of visual detail.

Once the foundations were solid, the work moved into high-fidelity wireframes built with a design system very close to the one intended for the final product. This refinement stage ensured visual consistency, clarified component behaviour and significantly reduced execution time when building the final prototype with the complete UI. This two-step approach balanced creativity with precision, allowing fast progress while maintaining a strong design rationale.

As part of the prototype validation process, usability tests were conducted in Maze to measure the platform’s key usability metrics. The evaluation included average task completion time, drop-off rate, and misclick metrics, providing insight into navigation clarity and revealing potential friction points and opportunities for improvement.

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Tasks evaluated in Maze:

This stage focused on translating the validated structure and key functionalities into a coherent visual language. Using a refined design system, I created the complete UI for Weyond and developed a high-fidelity interactive prototype. The visual direction was intentionally crafted to express the brand’s core values of serenity, clarity, respect and balance through calm color palettes, spacious layouts and a clean, unobtrusive interface.

The result is a user experience that feels intuitive, welcoming and culturally expressive, while remaining fully aligned with user needs and consistent across every screen and interaction. In addition to designing the full set of screens, an interactive prototype was built in Figma, allowing users and stakeholders to navigate through the flows and experience the product as it would function in its final version.

This project began with the challenge of helping expats in Barcelona access authentic experiences and feel more connected to local culture. Throughout the process, user research served as the guiding thread, providing the insights needed to understand motivations, barriers and expectations. These findings became the foundation for every design decision, shaping the ideation, prioritization and final solution. The result is a curated platform that simplifies logistics, strengthens social connections and highlights meaningful Catalan experiences, demonstrating the value of research driven design and a user centered approach.