On Track | Portfolio de design ui ux

On track - Discover Tondela

"On Track – Discover Tondela" is a new trail app designed to promote existing routes and highlight the cultural heritage of the Tondela region. The goal was to attract more tourists while preserving local traditions — offering visitors an authentic and educational experience through a digital platform that contributes to sustainable socioeconomic development.

The project was developed following a Human-Centered Design approach, balancing usability with user experience.

Problem

Research was conducted analyzing 4 existing platforms — the Tondela Municipality website, AllTrails, the Deutsches Museum app, and Culture App — to identify gaps and opportunities.

Key insights:

The Tondela website had too much information with poor organization, making it overwhelming
AllTrails had great exploration mechanics but lacked cultural and historical highlights along routes
The Deutsches Museum app showed how points of interest could enrich an experience
Culture App demonstrated the value of location-based information delivery

These findings shaped the app's core direction: combine route exploration with cultural storytelling, keeping the interface clean and intuitive.

Solution & Process

The app was structured around four main sections — Routes, Calendar, QR Code scanner, and Profile. Key design decisions included:

An interactive map with detailed route info (distance, difficulty, highlights)
QR codes placed along trails, providing historical and cultural facts at specific points
A calendar for local events and workshops
A community profile to track progress and share experiences

The visual identity used Helvetica and Inter as typefaces, with a natural color palette (olive green, warm beige, off-white and dark teal) to reflect the region's landscape.

Usability Testing

Two rounds of usability tests were conducted with 6 participants (students, a designer, and a software developer).

Round 1 — 4 users: identified non-functional buttons and low visibility of the navigation bar. Average experience rating: 4.25/5
Round 2 — 2 users: after fixes, navigation was praised as intuitive and easy to understand. Average rating: 4.5/5

Main takeaway: simplicity was the right call. Users consistently valued the clean design and found the route information and calendar the most useful features. Social features (sharing routes with other users in real time) were the most requested addition for future iterations.

Results & Learnings

The platform was well received across both rounds of testing. If I were to do it again, I would test core features earlier in the process and explore the social component from the start, as it was the most requested feature by users.

My role: UX/UI design, brand identity, prototyping, and usability testing
Collaborators: Ana Fontoura and Eduarda Cysneiros