A platform built for a new way of working
Explorius is a mobile application for digital nomads that unifies trip planning, local discovery, and social connection in one place, addressing the isolation and planning overwhelm that hold people back from the nomadic lifestyle.
As digital nomadism surged during 2021, a clear gap in the market emerged. Existing apps handled either planning or connecting, but never both. Explorius bridges that gap, helping nomads find where to work, what to do, and who to do it with, all from their phones.
My Role
Prototype Lead · Created the mobile application platform based on secondary research and user feedback
Timeframe
September 2021 to November 2022
Explorius Process Book, documenting the full journey from research to prototype
Topic of interest established early: fixing daily pain points for digital nomads
Research scope: 2 surveys, 73 responses, 15 interviews, 4 sensory cues, and 10 articles
Planning a nomadic life is overwhelming by design
Digital nomads face a compound problem. Planning successful trips tailored to their lifestyle is overwhelming and stressful, and once they arrive, social isolation chips away at the freedom they came for.
A 49% increase in people identifying as digital nomads in 2020 meant a fast-growing population with unmet needs. The existing toolkit, a patchwork of travel apps, Facebook groups, and co-working finder tools, left nomads scattered across a dozen platforms with no unified solution.
Secondary research grounded the problem in real data before any primary fieldwork began
49% growth in self-identified digital nomads during 2020 alone
65% of nomads travel in 1 to 3 month windows, requiring repeated planning cycles
Help digital nomads be less overwhelmed and stressed when it comes to moving, working, and pre-planning, while also helping them build real connections wherever they land?
Secondary research crystallized the core finding: digital nomads find it overwhelming and stressful to plan successful trips tailored to their lifestyles while preventing social isolation. These two problems, logistical and social, are deeply linked and need to be solved together.
Primary research moved the project from secondary data into direct user insight
Listening to nomads and those who want to be
Two surveys, 15 interviews, 4 sensory cue sessions, and 10 articles built a layered picture of what nomads feel, fear, and need. The research spoke to both active nomads and people who wanted the lifestyle but had not yet taken the leap.
Research Goals
Four research goals shaped every survey question and interview protocol
2 surveys across 73 respondents, 15 in-depth interviews, and 4 sensory cue sessions
Survey Data
30% of surveyed nomads reported feeling socially isolated, with only 20% feeling socially adequate
Nomads reported isolation; non-nomads confirmed that in-person community is what keeps them stationary
60% of non-nomads would go nomadic if they had people to join them; 88% already love to travel
Consistent demand from non-nomads: everything in one place, and real social connection
Interview Data
Three recurring themes from nomad interviews: social disconnection, overcompensation at work, and decision fatigue
Non-nomads want a personal assistant for booking and fear that planning would make the whole thing feel like work
Affinity Mapping
416 yellow, 46 green, 20 pink, and 6 blue notes synthesized into four major theme clusters
Four main insights from primary research synthesis
Target Audience and Archetypes
Target audience: 25 to 55 year old domestic and international digital nomads, mapped across six behavioral archetypes
Extreme cases mapped across two behavioral axes to stress-test the design space
From insight to idea
Two personas anchored the ideation phase, turning abstract insights into specific, human problems. From there, ideation, competitive analysis, and two distinct concepts were tested against those needs before converging on a final direction.
Personas
Ryan Byrne, 22, Houston: wants to take the leap but needs structure, budget tools, and community
Marley Lim, 24, Auckland: active nomad fighting isolation, overwhelmed by planning each new move
Marley's Experience
A scenario walkthrough with Marley revealed exactly how the pain points stack in real life.
Marley's scenario: isolation, planning paralysis, bad existing tools, and a desire for everything in one place
How Might We
Six HMW statements narrowed to one core opportunity: reducing overwhelm and stress across moving, working, and planning
Competitive Landscape
No existing product combined high planning and high social connection. That gap became Explorius
Ideation
Ideation drew from all four research insights, generating a wide solution space before narrowing
Two Concepts
Concept 1: a planning-forward app focused on building and storing complete trip plans
Concept 1 features: personalized packages, social connection, document storage, and premium partner access
Concept 2: a community-first app centered on reducing isolation through shared maps, forums, and booking
Convergence
Both concepts pointed to the same underlying problems: overwhelming logistics and social isolation
The two concepts merged: less travel agency, more connection and local planning
Explorius occupies a unique position: the only app combining both deep planning and active social connection
Feature Definition
Five core HMW features: public nomad map, local work spots, free events, group excursions, and in-app connection
Building the platform
With the concept defined, the team moved into branding, information architecture, and high-fidelity screens. A user scenario with Rory validated the experience end-to-end before prototype testing began.
Rory's Story
Before any high-fidelity screens were built, a narrative scenario was used to pressure-test the concept against real human behavior. Rory, a new user landing in an unfamiliar city, was walked through the full Explorius experience from discovery to booking to connection. The scenario was designed to expose gaps in the architecture before any visual work was at risk.
Rory's story validated the core thesis: connection, discovery, and planning unified in one place makes nomads genuinely happy
Branding
Poppins typeface paired with a warm, approachable palette of purple, teal, blue, and gray
Concept Validation
Card sorting with 20 open and 10 closed cards validated the mental model for navigation and content grouping
Seven clear wants emerged from card sort sessions, directly shaping the information architecture
Site Map
Five-section architecture: Dashboard, Itinerary, Map, Explore, and Profile, anchored by Onboarding
High-Fidelity Screens
With the architecture validated, high-fidelity screens were built across all five sections of the app.
High-fidelity screens across Dashboard, Itinerary, Map, Explore, and Profile
Why Explorius works the way it does
Four decisions defined the character of the product. Each one came directly from something a real user said or did during research or testing.
Research showed that nomads wanted control over when they were discoverable. Making yourself public needed to feel like a conscious choice, not a default. Stealth mode was not a privacy feature added at the end. It was a trust mechanism built into the product from the first wireframe, because users would not engage with the social layer unless they felt safe doing so on their own terms.
The first Dashboard iteration used recommendation carousels. User testing showed carousels felt passive and unhelpful. Nomads in a new city do not want to browse, they want to act. Replacing carousels with four utility modules, Close by Nomads, Recommended Excursions, Upcoming Events, and Notifications, turned the Dashboard from a suggestion surface into a tool users opened with purpose.
The original Explore tab combined Near You and Destinations in a single view. Users in testing could not articulate the difference between them, which meant neither was useful. Separating Events (free, spontaneous, social) from Excursions (bookable, structured, cost-based) gave each category a clear identity and made the path to action obvious for both types of user intent.
The original navigation used abstract icons, a pentagon, a telescope, a social graph, that tested poorly because users could not predict what they would find behind each one. Unpredictable navigation creates anxiety in an app built for people already managing high logistical stress. Switching to universally recognizable symbols, home, globe, map, luggage, profile, removed that friction entirely and reduced the learning curve to zero.
Testing what we built
Lo-fi prototypes were tested with users across the core screens, generating direct feedback on navigation clarity, information hierarchy, and feature usefulness. Each round produced targeted changes before the next iteration.
Explore
Initial lo-fi Explore screens tested the Near You, Destinations, and Partnerships tab structure
We needed a difference between Near You and Destinations. What is the difference?
Explore update: Events and Excursions separated, swiping added, booking made more accessible
Dashboard
Initial lo-fi Dashboard tested carousel-based content recommendations
The dashboard was not so useful, and they want more utilities.
Dashboard redesigned around four utility-first modules: Notifications, Close by Nomads, Recommended Excursions, Upcoming Events
Navigation
Navigation icons replaced with universally recognizable symbols, resolving the learnability issue
Key Testing Insights
Users could not distinguish Near You from Destinations. Separating Events and Excursions into distinct tabs resolved the confusion immediately.
A recommendation carousel felt passive. Users wanted actionable widgets: nomads nearby, upcoming events, and real-time notifications.
Abstract icons created unnecessary cognitive load. Switching to universally recognizable symbols removed the friction entirely.
Book Now needed to be more prominent and accessible. Reorganizing excursion detail pages made the path to booking faster and clearer.
A platform ready to launch
Over 14 months, Explorius moved from a research question about nomad pain points to a tested, high-fidelity mobile platform with a validated information architecture. In user testing, every navigation change reduced task completion time. The Dashboard redesign produced the strongest positive response of any single change across all testing rounds, with users describing it as the first time a travel app felt like it was actually built for how they work. The competitive gap identified in research, no product combining deep planning with active social connection, remained unoccupied by any existing app at project close.
The experiences Explorius was built to make possible
60% of non-nomads said they would become digital nomads if they had people to join them. Social connection was never a secondary feature of Explorius. It was always the product.
Business Model
Business Model Canvas: a freemium model anchored by excursion fees and a premium subscription tier
What I Learned
Building Explorius as Prototype Lead taught me that the most impactful design decisions often happen before any screens are drawn. The research phase, specifically recognizing that social isolation and planning overwhelm were the same problem in two different forms, was what made the concept coherent. Every subsequent decision flowed from that insight.
Talking to both active nomads and aspiring nomads revealed that the biggest barrier to adoption was social, not logistical. That finding shaped the entire product.
Two competing concepts, one planning-focused and one community-focused, were stronger combined. Resisting the urge to pick one and instead finding the synthesis was the pivotal decision of the project.
Lo-fi testing exposed navigation and hierarchy issues before any high-fidelity work was at risk. Getting feedback on paper before pixels saved significant iteration time.
As Prototype Lead, translating research into a navigable product experience required constant alignment between what users said they wanted and what the architecture could actually support.
Explorius. Let's get away.