73% reduction in planning uncertainty — measured across two rounds of usability testing with real hikers.
Ecopass is a mobile permit system for Hungarian national parks — replacing fragmented, paper-based processes with a single app that lets hikers request permits, track their applications in real-time, and reach any trail with complete confidence.
Hungarian national parks require hikers to hold permits for many protected routes — but the process for obtaining them was scattered across park authority offices, paper forms, and third-party sites. Information about which trails required permits, what restrictions applied, and whether a booking was still valid was fragmented and inconsistent, leaving hikers uncertain at the moment it mattered most.
The core design challenge was uncertainty: users could not confidently determine their permit status without significant effort, and park rangers were burdened by manual processing and frequent repeat enquiries. Existing navigation apps like AllTrails and Komoot offered route discovery but no permit layer whatsoever — leaving a clear gap in the end-to-end hiking experience.
Ecopass closes that gap. The app lets hikers request permits directly, track application status in real-time, receive smart recommendations for alternative routes when quotas are full, and carry their permit digitally — eliminating the risk of losing it. A single mobile experience replaces what was previously a multi-step, offline process.
UX Process
Discovery began with eight user interviews and two field observations conducted on-site in national park areas, supplemented by stakeholder interviews with park rangers. This combination of user and expert perspectives revealed two distinct failure points: hikers struggled to find permit information before setting off, while rangers were overwhelmed by avoidable manual tasks. Competitor analysis of AllTrails and Komoot confirmed that no existing tool addressed permit management — validating the opportunity.
Synthesis surfaced a primary persona: Szabados Flóra, 32, an active day hiker who plans routes independently and values self-sufficiency. Her key frustration was arriving at a trailhead underprepared — not because she hadn't tried, but because reliable permit information simply wasn't available in one place. Her journey map made the critical gap visible: the space between selecting a route and feeling confident enough to commit to it.
Information architecture was defined for 16 core screens, covering onboarding, permit request, real-time status tracking, and alternative route recommendations. Wireframes were iterated before moving to a hi-fi design system built for iPhone 14, with Komoot-style maps powered by Leaflet.js and OpenStreetMap to keep the experience familiar to experienced hikers.
Two rounds of usability testing shaped the final design. Round one — four participants — surfaced 12 distinct issues, most concentrated around permit status legibility and the accordion-based information panels, where scroll depth reached only 42%. Fixes focused on visual hierarchy, clearer status indicators, and progressive disclosure to surface key information without overwhelming first-time users.
Round two — four participants, two of them new — validated the changes: task completion reached 95%, satisfaction scored 4.7 out of 5, and accordion scroll depth improved from 42% to 81%, confirming that users were now reading the full permit conditions before proceeding. Across both rounds, measured planning uncertainty fell by 73%.
