Velomapa mobile
Product Design
Lead Design
Mobile app
Brand
B2C
2024
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Summary
Problem
The 5-Hour Friction Planning multi-day trips was a fragmented ordeal, averaging 5 hours per trip. Cyclists were forced to stitch together disjointed apps for discovery, planning, and navigation, lacking a single source of truth.
Solution
An All-in-One Ecosystem I architected the 0-to-1 mobile app, transforming a static route collection into a dynamic cycling platform.
Map-Centric UI: Unified discovery and navigation using scalable OpenStreetMap data.
Integrated Value: Layered crucial POIs (accommodation, service) and community insights directly onto the route.
Impact
Growth: 60k organic downloads since Spring 2024.
Financially backed by 1,300 users via crowdfunding.
Early monetization proven with 600+ accommodation bookings.
Sentiment: 4.5/5 (iOS) and 4.3/5 (Android) average rating.
Early designs
Mobile app design
Process
User pain ponts
Users needed to stitch together data from multiple apps like Komoot, Mapy.cz, and Google Maps to find cyclint routes, accommodation, check ferry times, and verify road quality. This was the most difficult part of planning a trip.
Cyclists lacked confidence in downloaded GPX files and navigation, often finding themselves stuck on unrideable terrain or national roads when better options existed.
The planning experience required manually modifying and cutting long trails into manageable segments, then exporting the GPX to an external device (Garmin, Wahoo).
Hyphothesis
I analyzed competitors and community feedback, identifying that leading apps like Komoot and Strava lacked the focus on official tourist cycling routes and failed to integrate dynamic Accommodation/POI data in a user-friendly way.
I defined the new core value proposition: "If we simplify and centralize the entire Discover-Plan-Navigate journey by designing a scalable, map-centric platform that uses OSM data for global coverage and community feedback for ground truth, we can increase trip planning confidence and accelerate adoption.
Solution
I designed a map-centric UI that eliminated fragmentation by surfacing crucial POIs (accommodations, campsites, bike services) directly on the route view. This decision reduced friction in planning and increased user confidence, successfully combining essential route data that previously required juggling 3-4 external apps.
I architected the contribution model to not just gather route reviews and photos, but to actively improve the global data layer. This design decision created a mechanism where every user contribution helps ensure the platform's long-term data accuracy, directly enabling our two-way integration with OpenStreetMap.
Mobile app design
Main home page
Search routes
See quick route preview
Export GPX
Find different POI (Accommodations, Train Stations etc.)
Learn more about POI
Set up different map types
Tablet view
Impact
The overwhelming adoption, evidenced by 60,000 organic downloads and 10,500 people supporting in crowdfunding, validated the acute pain point and the product's solution within the cycling community.
The project (VeloPlanner) now targets a potential 360,000 paying users and 14.4 Million in ARR, establishing a clear high-growth path.
