End-to-end design of a mobile app that connects outdoor enthusiasts with like-minded people through events, chat and a single set of tools. Built for the Spanish adventure community @planzadventure using Design Thinking (observation, synthesis, ideation, prototyping, testing) and delivered in Figma as a complete front-end-ready system.
Outdoor communities in Spain had plenty of Instagram accounts but no shared infrastructure: no unified way to organize meetups, coordinate logistics, or find people who matched your pace and ambition. PLAN Z App was built to fix that.
Context
PLAN Z is a real outdoor adventure community we built and still operate (currently paused while I focus on Simplia). By the time we designed the app, the community already had active events, a growing brand, and a founding team. The app design was built to serve an already-living community, not invent one from scratch.
Approach
Design Thinking process
Five phases: observation (interviewing active community members), synthesis (affinity mapping and persona definition), ideation (competitive analysis + 80-sketch sprint), prototyping (three Figma iterations), and testing (usability sessions with real users from the target demographic).
Key features
- Events hub: create, discover, and RSVP to outdoor activities with route previews and gear recommendations
- Community chat: topic-based group threads with location sharing for active outings
- Tools integration: weather, elevation profiles, and emergency contacts all in one place
System design
Delivered as a full Figma design system: components, variants, interaction states, spacing tokens, and a handoff-ready spec document. The engineering team could start building from day one.
My role
I led the complete design and prototype of the PLAN Z app: all product screens, user flows, wireframes, brand identity, and the full Figma prototype, applying Design Thinking end-to-end from discovery through prototype. The team: me leading product and brand, plus an engineer partner and a tourism student.
Impact
We organized outdoor plans with 100+ people total, including mountain trips with groups of 30+ taking people into nature who wouldn’t otherwise have gone. We grew the brand from 0 to 5,400+ followers across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok in 8 months, fully organic, zero ad spend, and produced one tracking-skills video on reading natural signs to follow trails that crossed one million views.
