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Concept Project
A mobile app designed to assist expats and immigrants in adjusting to new cultures and environments — combining emotional support, community, and practical tools in one place.
SideBySide is a mobile app concept designed to support expats and immigrants as they adapt to a new country or city. It combines emotional well-being tools, community features, and practical resources to help users cope with loneliness, cultural differences, and everyday integration challenges.
This project is personally meaningful to me — I have experienced the emotional and practical difficulties of moving to a new country. All design decisions were guided by user research and validated insights.
Thoughtful digital experiences can help people feel supported, even when navigating the hardest life changes.
GOAL
Create a safe digital space where people navigating emigration can access emotional support, community, and practical tools.
MY RESPONSIBILITIES
UI/UX Design
UX Research
Usability Testing
I surveyed 18 participants who had experienced moving to a new country or city, collecting qualitative and quantitative data about emotional well-being, social integration, and preferences for mental health and community support.
Community & belonging
People connect primarily with similar backgrounds. Finding genuine local community is difficult and takes time.
Mental health access
Finding mental health support tailored to expats is difficult — most services don't account for the unique stressors of relocation.
Local connections
Making social connections with locals and accessing local events is consistently cited as a major challenge for newcomers.
Cultural guidance
Language learning and cultural integration guidance is highly valued — users want practical help alongside emotional support.
User personas
One primary persona guided the design process — representing expats navigating emotional and cultural challenges after relocation.
Sofia
Berlin, Germany
GOALS:
Find a supportive community that understands her struggles
Reduce feelings of loneliness and anxiety
Find herself in the new environment
FRUSTRATIONS:
Feels isolated as she doesn’t know many people
Struggles with situational stress
Lacks access to mental health support tailored to emigrants
BEHAVIOR:
Relies on digital tools to seek emotional reassurance, practical advice, and a sense of belonging in her new environment.
Avoids platforms that require immediate social exposure, favoring asynchronous or anonymous interaction first.
Hesitates to initiate social interactions in real life, preferring low-pressure digital spaces where she can observe, engage gradually, and feel safe.
“I just want to feel like I belong somewhere. I’m learning, but it’s hard to adjust on my own.”
Competitive audit
I evaluated MindDoc, Headspace, Calm, and InterNations to identify gaps in existing solutions. Each app does one thing well — but none integrates mental health tools, community building, and offline event discovery together. SideBySide bridges this gap.
The sitemap is built around five core sections — Relief, Connect, Explore, Offline Events, and Profile — supporting a seamless flow between emotional support, social connection, and practical guidance.
Sitemap
The visual direction was designed to feel calming and emotionally safe — reinforcing trust and approachability at every step. Special attention was given to readability, spacing, and emotional tone.
Paper sketch
The visual direction was designed to feel calming, supportive, and approachable, reinforcing emotional safety and trust.
UI elements & design system
Low-fidelity digital wireframes helped resolve navigation challenges, improve accessibility, and establish a clear visual hierarchy — keeping the focus on structure rather than style at this stage.
Desktop
High-fidelity wireframes define the four main flows: Explore/Home for mood check-ins, Connect for community, Offline Events for local meetups, and Relief for guided exercises. Each screen was designed around calm, intuitive interactions.
I conducted exploratory usability testing with 5 participants from the target audience to validate the clarity and usability of the proposed solution.
18
Survey participants during research phase
5
Usability testing participants from target audience
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Intuitive, easy to navigate, emotionally supportive
Users found the app intuitive and emotionally supportive — main features and flows were understood without guidance.
Navigation clarity — clarified connections between key screens that were unclear during testing
Interactive elements — improved visibility of tappable elements with stronger visual cues
Hierarchy & microcopy — refined spacing, labels, and content structure throughout all screens
A clear and friendly app concept that combines emotional support, community, and practical tools in one experience. The design helps users feel guided, supported, and confident while exploring the app.
Empathy without bias
My personal background gave me valuable empathy for this subject. But I remained conscious of potential bias and relied on research and diverse perspectives throughout — personal experience informs, but doesn't replace research.
Designing for emotion
This project strengthened my ability to design emotionally sensitive products while balancing empathy, usability, and scalability. Thoughtful digital experiences can help people feel supported even through the hardest life changes.