Course Careers UI/UX Design Project · Local Experience Finder
Travel like a local, plan like a pro. A discovery app designed to reveal Sheffield’s hidden, charming cafés, art spaces, parks, and community culture.
For 15 years, I lived in Paris, capturing the city’s magic through my lens: the light, the culture, the intimacy of everyday life. Then life changed, and I found myself selling my apartment and moving to Sheffield.
Sheffield remains a well-kept secret. That’s why I created SecretSpot: Sheffield, a Local Experience Finder built for my UI/UX course and designed to reveal the hidden charm of this city.
I miss the café culture of Paris, but Sheffield surprised me: independent cafés, art spaces, and vast parks framed by the Peak District. The problem? People don’t know where to look.
SecretSpot guides users to the city’s best-kept secrets. From cafés to galleries with practical info and low-stress planning baked in.
To understand how people currently discover cities, I reviewed two established platforms and studied where they fall short for a place like Sheffield.
Editorial recommendations written by locals, but largely fixed in format. Discovery is guided, not exploratory, and accessibility or practical detail is often missing.
Gamified walking routes designed for tourists. Engaging, but heavily structured with limited flexibility, offline use, or personalisation.
Rather than pre-designed routes or editorial lists, SecretSpot explores how people actually move through a city: following recommendations, needs, mood, and circumstance.
Four days of rapid research to test one question: what makes discovering a city feel effortless and what makes it feel like work?
Three moments that shaped the design direction.
Video call snapshot
Accessibility & personalisation
What I learned
Design implication
Results from surveys and user interviews helped shape an initial list of features:
Two personas were created from interview insights. Each represents a different set of travel challenges that shaped the first-pass feature priorities.
She struggles to confidently plan and move around new places because reliable, detailed accessibility info is often missing—making navigation, filtering for suitable venues, and avoiding stressful barriers/crowds harder than it should be.
He finds it hard to discover authentic, culturally rich experiences without being funneled into generic tourist lists—while also needing low-strain, accessible plans (and nearby health info) that don’t require fighting cluttered, unreliable apps.
These flows show how each persona reaches their goal and where trust can break if accessibility information isn’t current, specific, and verifiable.
Sinead can complete the full loop → discover → verify access → plan/book → navigate → share/advocate, but the “goal achieved” moment is built on one thing: trust. She needs accessibility info that’s clear, evidence-based, and visibly up to date.
The journey breaks when reality doesn’t match the promise: details are outdated, “accessible” is vague, barriers appear on arrival, or her feedback disappears into a void. Those hiccups don’t just slow her down, they undo confidence.
The map points to the safeguard: “I’ll earn trust by showing proof of accessibility and making it quick to report issues—with a visible ‘we heard you’ update.”
Kwame’s “success” path is intentionally low friction → onboarding → search → apply cuisine + accessibility filters → compare → choose → navigate → save. In the designed flow, he reaches the goal quickly.
The likely hiccups are practical: account gates before value, weak filter quality, or accessibility labels that don’t hold up in real life. If the results can’t be trusted, he stalls at comparison and drops out.
The fix is simple: let him browse first, keep preferences optional, and show accessibility as proof-backed badges (not claims) so he can decide fast without second-guessing.
“An in-depth, carefully considered case study that goes beyond course expectations and reflects real-world UI/UX design practice”
Let’s work together
I design mobile-first experiences (apps now, websites next) with clear hierarchy, accessibility cues, and low-stress flows.
I drafted a sitemap, then validated labels and pathways using card sorting and tree testing — with the biggest improvements around onboarding and sign-up.
Method
Card sort + tree test
Goal
Reduce hesitation
Outcome
Clearer labels + simpler paths
Biggest change
“Welcome” → “Getting Started”. Sign-up moved where users expected it.
Clear labels reduce cognitive load. When navigation feels obvious, users move faster and trust the app more.
Result
Find sign-up faster and hesitate less.
The Sign-Up pathway created the most friction (high time, low completion), while most other tasks were fast — so the structure mostly worked, but onboarding labels needed refinement.
Low fidelity wireframes helped validate structure and flow quickly. High fidelity wireframes refined hierarchy, interaction, and accessibility cues.
A quick visual direction check: atmosphere, tone, and the visual system used to keep the UI consistent.
The final UI for SecretSpot: Sheffield was shaped by usability testing. I simplified labels, removed duplicate CTAs, improved icon clarity, and surfaced accessibility details earlier. A restrained green and neutral palette reflects Sheffield’s landscape, while real photography keeps the experience grounded and calm for mobile-first exploration.
In response, the final UI prioritises clarity, accessibility, and calm exploration. A restrained green and neutral palette reflects Sheffield’s natural landscape and reinforces a sense of trust and ease, while real-world photography grounds the experience in place rather than generic travel imagery.
Usability testing directly influenced navigation structure, icon design, onboarding flow, and filter options. Labels were simplified, duplicate CTAs removed, and accessibility features surfaced earlier in the journey. Designed mobile-first and refined through repeated testing, the final interface supports inclusive, flexible exploration — allowing users to experience Sheffield on their own terms.
High-fidelity prototype tested across iOS and Android devices.
Best viewed fullscreen for full interaction.
