Overview
Wander replaces your destination with a direction — and gives you back the part of a city you stopped noticing.
Navigation will be optimized so completely that it quietly eliminates one of the best things about being in a city: not knowing what's around the next corner.
Wander was designed to give that back — not by adding more pins to a map, but by removing the map entirely. Users choose a feeling, not a destination.
Wander is a mobile app that trades turn-by-turn navigation for a single direction — designed around the real barrier standing between people and genuine discovery: the screen in their hand.
The best travel memories were never planned. They happened despite a navigation app, not because of one.
Goal
A compass replaces turn-by-turn. A Watch haptic replaces the notification. The phone goes in the pocket. The entire product is built around a single belief: the best design decision here was everything we chose not to build.
Make it as natural to record a family memory as it is to take a photo — so nothing gets lost when the people who remember are gone.
Why this works: the "what changed" is the design philosophy itself — restraint as the feature. It signals senior thinking immediately.
Project Summary
Wander replaces your destination with a direction — and gives you back the part of a city you stopped noticing.
Story
The best travel memories were never planned. The alley café, the unexpected mural, the overlook no guide mentioned — none of those happened because of a navigation app. They happened despite one.
Wander was built around a single question: what if the app just pointed you in a direction and got out of the way? Less information, not more. A compass instead of a map. The whole thing designed around one belief — the best version of this experience is the one where you forget the app is there.
What is Wander?
A mobile app that trades turn-by-turn navigation for a single direction — designed around the real barrier standing between people and genuine discovery: the screen in their hand.
What makes Wander unique?
Most apps assume you want to know where you're going. Wander doesn't. A compass, a feeling, and a pocket-ready phone are all it takes to give a city back to the person walking through it.
Problem
We optimized navigation. We forgot how to explore.
Every route is the fastest route. Every walk has a destination. People move through cities they've never actually seen because their eyes are on a screen telling them where to go next.The desire to explore is real. But the moment someone stands on a corner with nowhere specific to be, anxiety sends them straight back to Maps. The want is there. The friction is there too. Nobody has designed for the gap between them.
Research
What stops people from actually getting lost
Research surfaces a consistent tension: people describe wanting spontaneity but default to structured navigation the moment they feel uncertain. The barrier isn't desire — it's the anxiety of open space. Even a single directional nudge is enough to break the paralysis and let exploration begin naturally.
Design Principles
The rules I'll designed around
Direction, not destination
A feeling replaces a search bar.
Haptic over notification
The Watch nudges. The phone stays pocketed.
Compass over Map
Less information, not more.
Restraint is a Festure
Crackling audio is a feature, not a bug.
Why we removed the search bar
A search bar implies a destination. Removing it was the single most clarifying design decision in the project — it forced every other choice to follow. If there's no destination, there's no fastest route. If there's no fastest route, there's no map. If there's no map, the phone goes in the pocket. The whole system follows from one removal.
Key Screens
Six screens built around putting your phone away
Feeling selector · Compass view · Watch haptic layer · Discovery log · Offline mode · End of wander summary. Each screen is designed to be the last one you look at for as long as possible.
Decisions
Why I removed the search bar
A search bar implies a destination. Removing it was the single most clarifying design decision in the project — it forced every other choice to follow. If there's no destination, there's no fastest route. If there's no fastest route, there's no map. If there's no map, the phone goes in the pocket. The whole system follows from one removal.
Every design decision — no editing, voice over text, object-first navigation — traces back to one belief: the best way to preserve something fragile is to make capturing it feel like nothing at all.
Reflection
What restraint looks like as a design strategy
Wander's defining feature is everything it chose not to build. No pins. No reviews. No suggested routes. The entire product is a argument that the best design decision is sometimes a deletion — and that knowing what to leave out is the hardest skill in the work.
The best travel memories were never planned. They happened despite a navigation app, not because of one.