Find travel partners, book tickets and stay connected with your buddies, all in one app.
Buddy Pass is a travel-companion and events app that helps people find trusted partners for trips, book tickets, and stay connected, all in one place. We led the full UI case study: color system, typography, iconography and components, then shipped a cross-platform Flutter build on top of a Firebase backend deployed to both stores.
Solo travel is growing but risky, and event-goers rarely want to go alone. Buddy Pass had to condense three separate behaviors, finding a trusted partner, booking tickets, and staying in touch, into a single, low-friction mobile experience that felt safe and social from the first tap.
We mapped end-to-end journeys in Miro before touching pixels: onboarding, buddy discovery, chat, ticket booking, saved events and reminders. Low-fi wireframes were tested with target users so complex, multi-step flows were simplified before UI work began.
A warm, sunset-inspired palette paired with Inter for headings and body carries a friendly, human tone. A custom icon set, tab bar and reusable components (cards, chips, sheets) were built as a system so screens stay consistent as the product grows.
Complex user flows were simplified with wireframes and quick user testing. A cluttered UI was replaced with minimal design and grouped features. Cross-device responsiveness was handled with mobile-first grids and adaptive layouts. Performance issues were resolved by optimizing assets and using lightweight visuals.
Strengths: easy, user-friendly event discovery, community-driven connections, saved events and reminders. Weaknesses to watch: dependence on active users and events, potential trust issues, limited offline usability, moderation effort. Opportunities: reminder loops, expanding discovery models and community rituals. Threats: incumbent travel and dating apps entering the same space.
Design and prototyping in Figma, icons in Illustrator, flows in Miro. Flutter (Dart) on the front-end for a single cross-platform codebase, Firebase for authentication, notifications and data, Google Maps API for location, and Firebase Test Lab for device coverage. Shipped through Google Play Console and the Apple App Store; project tracked in Trello with GitHub for version control.
“One tap to find a buddy, book the trip and keep the plan alive, that was the whole product in a sentence, and the UI had to disappear behind it.”