Case Study — Travel & Entertainment

Darrbak App

Oman's experience-discovery platform already had traction, providers, and activities. My job was to turn that into adoption — redesigning the app so 15,000+ people could actually find, trust, and book what Oman had to offer.

RoleSenior Product Designer

Timeline2025

Team3 collaborators — product & engineering

ToolsFigma, FigJam, Maze, Illustrator, Photoshop, Jira, Microsoft Clarity

Active users on the platform

Increase in adoption

Faster time-to-find a relevant experience

Task success after redesign, up from ~50%

Overview

A live product, not a blank canvas

Oman's culture of hidden gems and community-driven experiences was scattered across Instagram posts, WhatsApp groups, and word of mouth — nothing centralized, nothing reliable. Darrbak set out to fix that. When I joined, the app already had 10,000+ active users, providers, and real activities — my mission was to turn it into the #1 experience-discovery app in Oman, effortless and trusted by both users and providers.

My role — Senior Product Designer

UX research & user interviews · IA restructuring & flows · wireframing (low- and mid-fidelity) · building and scaling a design system · prototyping key journeys · experience-provider flows · testing with users and the internal team · launch readiness & design QA · feature roadmap recommendations.

Discover

Understand the people and the problem before designing anything.

Define

Turn raw findings into personas and a sharp problem definition.

Ideate

Explore directions with HMWs and a value proposition before touching pixels.

Design

Build the flows, system, and UI that bring the concept to life.

Validate

Test with real users, measure against KPIs, and iterate until it works.

Problems identified

Six barriers, found in the data

Through analytics, user interviews, provider conversations, and reviews, six structural problems stood between Darrbak and real adoption.

Low discoverability

Users struggled to browse or filter experiences efficiently.

Unclear navigation

Experiences were rich, but the structure behind them was confusing.

Limited transparency

Users needed clear availability, duration, location, pricing, ratings, and provider info.

Shared auth model

Users and providers shared the same account model — these needed separating into independent roles.

Weak social discovery

Experiences are social by nature, yet users rarely invited friends.

Rigid pricing

No support for age-based or nationality-based pricing to address different segments.

Discover

A live product with 10,000+ users meant discovery had to happen without breaking what already worked — so I paired direct research with the data the app was already generating.

Interviews

12 active users, Oman-based

Plus 30+ survey responses and a full analytics review of the Darrbak admin dashboard.

Interviews

4 local providers

Alongside a market and competitor audit against GetYourGuide, VisitOman, and Airbnb Experiences.

→

What users wanted

Quick browsing, trusted reviews, clear pricing, easy filtering, visual inspiration, and social-friendly booking.

→

What providers wanted

More visibility, easier listing management, and reliable booking flows.

B2C and B2B interview highlights — B2C & B2B interview highlights

Interview and survey highlights — Interview & survey highlights

Define

Research split cleanly into two sides of the same marketplace — I mapped a full persona for each, then defined the core problems that cut across both.

Sara Al-Harthy, 26

B2C — Nature Lover

Goals

Discover nearby weekend experiences quickly
Find trustworthy pricing, reviews, and photos
Invite friends to join adventures easily

Frustrations

Information scattered across Instagram, WhatsApp, and blogs
Hard to trust new providers
Planning requires too many steps and apps

Marketing Coordinator in Muscat — plans weekends last-minute, wants a platform that saves her time and gives her confidence in what she books.

Rashid Ahmad, 30

B2B — Experience Provider

Goals

Attract more customers through the app
Increase bookings during the off-season
Manage listings without complicated tools

Frustrations

Limited visibility against bigger providers
Inconsistent booking details from customers
Relies on WhatsApp for customer communication

Owner of a hiking and cultural tour company in Nizwa — five years leading tours, needs better exposure and simpler tools to grow sustainably.

Core problems defined

Visibility · Trust · Clarity · Personalization · Social sharing · Provider accessibility

Ideate

I brought the PM, developers, and other designers into HMW workshops, storyboards, and flow sketches for both sides of the marketplace before committing to a direction.

HMW · UsersHelp users find relevant experiences quickly and easily?
HMW · UsersShow all important details clearly so users can book with confidence?
HMW · ProvidersHelp providers stand out and showcase their experiences clearly?
HMW · ProvidersReduce providers' reliance on WhatsApp and external tools?
HMW · UsersHelp users discover new experiences without feeling overwhelmed?
HMW · UsersMake browsing and filtering experiences simple and intuitive?
HMW · ProvidersHelp providers manage bookings and communication inside the app?
HMW · ProvidersSupport providers with tools designed specifically for their needs?

Value proposition

A single, trusted platform that makes discovering and booking local experiences in Oman effortless for users — while giving providers clear visibility, flexible pricing, and simple tools to manage and grow their offerings.

Design

Six connected redesigns, each tied back to a problem from discovery — not a UI refresh, but a restructuring of how the whole marketplace works.

Discover Oman Instantly

Problem

Users spent too long browsing
No personalized recommendations

Solution

Redesigned home feed with category-based discovery
"Featured Experiences" + behavior-based suggestions

Impact — faster browsing, more meaningful exploration, higher conversion to detail view.

Experience Details

Problem

Details hidden or incomplete
Providers not highlighted, ratings unclear

Solution

Full detail page — images, map, duration, price, reviews, provider info
"Invite friend" button + similar experiences

Impact — higher trust, faster decisions, more engagement with providers.

Smart Pricing

Problem

Fixed pricing wasn't flexible
No Omani vs. non-Omani or adult/child pricing

Solution

Age & nationality pricing matrix, editable by admin
Real-time price calculation in the booking flow

Impact — fairer pricing, better support for families, higher booking conversion.

Social Discovery

Problem

Experiences are social by nature, yet rarely shared

Solution

Invite directly from contacts or WhatsApp
Pre-designed message templates, group planning prompts

Impact — more group bookings, more organic acquisition.

Packages

Problem

No way to combine experiences into one offering
Complex multi-day trips required manual coordination

Solution

Curated multi-experience bundles with an admin timeline builder
Day-by-day itinerary shown in the package detail screen

Impact — premium multi-day offerings, higher revenue per booking.

System-Wide UI Redesign

Problem

Inconsistent components across native and provider surfaces

Solution

New design system — tokens, variables, components, variants
Arabic & English layout logic, improved UX copy

Darrbak became more premium, more Omani, more human.

Darrbak process and approach demo — Process & approach in motion

Darrbak design system — System-wide UI redesign

Validate

A full UX research plan validated the redesigned flows — Discovery, Experience Details, Saved Items, Providers, Pricing, and Packages — against real tasks, not just opinions.

Methodology

Moderated remote usability testing

30–40 minute Zoom sessions, scenario-based tasks, think-aloud protocol, a post-task questionnaire, and an SUS (System Usability Scale) score. Tools: Figma prototype, Notion checklist, Google Forms, Zoom recording.

Participants

5 users + 3 providers

Modeled on personas Sara (nature-lover, B2C) and Ahmed (tour-guide provider, B2B). Recruited via Instagram, local tourism WhatsApp groups, and the provider network.

Research goals

Evaluate how easily users discover and book experiences; assess whether users understand experience details, pricing, and provider credibility; validate the new age/nationality pricing flow; test clarity of the new Packages section; identify friction points that block booking; observe use of Saved Experiences, Invite Friend, and Search.

Task 1–2

Discover & open a detail page

Observed category use, filters, card scanning, and comprehension of location, ratings, and provider identity.

Task 3–5

Book, explore a package, save & retrieve

Tested age/nationality pricing clarity, the multi-day package timeline, and memory friction on saved items.

Task success rate

~50%→88%

Navigation clarity score

2.7/5→4.3/5

Pricing understanding

48%→91%

Provider info clarity

55%→88%

User confidence score

2.9/5→4.4/5

Saved-item retrieval success

46%→92%

Time on task

40–55% faster

Booking error rate

<6%

Interest in Packages

84%

Discoverability task success

49%→87%

Test script — 5 scenario tasks

1. Discover an experience that fits your interest. 2. Open a detail page and explain what you understand. 3. Book for 2 adults + 1 child as an Omani national. 4. Explore a Package and describe what's included. 5. Save an experience, then find it again.

Darrbak testing insights infographic — Testing insights

Reflection

What this project reinforced

Designing on a live product with 10,000+ active users requires precision over experimentation — every change has to earn its place. Localization shapes behavior, not just language, and consistency across a multi-channel product (user, provider, admin) turned out to be a systems problem, not a UI one.