Ever found yourself abroad, craving a taste of home? Imagine a world where expatriates can easily access their favorite native products from back home, no matter where they roam.
NomadNest is a global social app that helps expats and travelers connect over shared interests, cravings, and cultural experiences—turning unfamiliar places into meaningful connections.
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OVERVIEW
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Expatriates often face challenges in staying connected to their home country, leading to feelings of isolation and disconnection.
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Despite being active in local communities or on social media, many find it difficult to maintain a strong sense of belonging and stay updated with cultural, social, and familial aspects of their homeland.
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This disconnection affects their emotional well-being, making it essential to bridge the gap between their new life abroad and their roots back home.
PROJECT SPECS
Role: IC UX Designer
Duration: January 2024 - April 2024
Platform: Mobile (iOS, Android)
Team: 1 UX Designer, 1 Design Mentor.
Tools: Figma, Miro, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Microsoft Office.
SOLUTION
Through these collective insights, the common challenges faced by expatriates in sourcing familiar commodities and establishing meaningful connections in their new environments was realized. Thus, these encounters helped in the conception of NomadNest, a platform aimed at bridging these gaps and providing expatriates with a sense of familiarity and belonging.
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Research Objectives
Analyze how global migration affects expatriates' demand for home country items.
Explore expatriates' challenges in accessing essentials, like limited travel, exorbitant shipping and import restrictions.
Investigate requests on social media for transporting goods between hometowns and abroad.
Examine constraints like travel schedules and visa issues affecting expatriates' access to goods.
Develop a unified platform connecting expatriates and travelers to enhance communication and commodity services.
Audiences
The users for the app idea would primarily be the expatriates, belonging to the age group of 18 to 60 years living abroad who are seeking to connect with fellow expats and travelers visiting their home countries to source native commodities. Additionally, travelers who are willing to assist expatriates by bringing back requested items would also be users of the platform.
Affinity Maps
STYLE GUIDE
The mobile application's design system features lively colors and incorporates the Montserrat and Roboto font, accompanied by a varied array of components. These components, including buttons, icons, and bars, ensure a unified and fluid user interface.
Primary Colors
Secondary Colors
Neutral Colors
Buttons
Typography
Headline
Helvetica Neue - 31 pts
Title
Helvetica Neue - 26 pts
Sub-heading 1
Helvetica Neue - 20 pts
Sub-heading 2
Helvetica Neue - 16 pts
Sub-heading 3
Avenir - 14 pts
Body
Avenir - 12 pts
Caption 01
Avenir - 11 pts
MAIN SCREENS
Crafting the high-fidelity wireframes entailed integrating brand components into mid-fidelity wireframes, a seamless process facilitated by the principles of design thinking.
User Onboarding
Home Screen
Cart
ExpatConnect
USABILITY TESTING
The initial experience wasn’t seamless. The first iteration underwent usability testing, which revealed several pain points and areas for improvement.
Testing MVP
Conducting a Moderated user testing with 5 participants, the following tasks were assigned -
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Navigating from Welcome Screen to Home Screen.
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Exploring the Home Screen & Navigating to Traveler Profiles.
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Exploring Traveller Profiles & Sending Connection Requests to Travelers.
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Navigating to Cart, Adding Products and successful Checkout.
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Messaging fellow Expatriates and Travelers.
Results
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The design resulted in a 100% task completion rate, showing that all users were able to complete their tasks successfully.
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With an average difficulty rating of 1.2 (on a scale from 1 to 5), the tasks were perceived as extremely easy to perform.
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Furthermore, users made an average of just 3 errors, highlighting the interface’s clarity and overall usability.
MY LEARNING
My experience as an expatriate and engagement with fellow expats worldwide inspired the development of NomadNest, shaping my understanding of user experience design. Interacting with diverse users, researching competitor platforms, and conceptualizing the app refined my design approach and initial iterations. Prioritizing streamlined processes and reducing user friction became paramount for enhancing engagement.
Additionally, I grasped the significance of providing contextual guidance through tooltips and pop-ups, as well as actively listening to user feedback to address pain points and enhance usability continually. Balancing customization and automation emerged as a key learning, as did designing intuitive navigation to facilitate seamless exploration of the app. Lastly, fostering a sense of community through features like messaging and forums became integral to creating a supportive expatriate network within the app.