Nusuk - Mobile app
Designing a culturally grounded digital app
OVERVIEW
Designing a scalable and culturally meaningful digital ecosystem for millions of pilgrims.
At Nusuk, I led the transformation of the product experience—redefining its UX, visual identity, and design system to support a growing ecosystem of services.
The challenge was not only functional, but cultural: translating deeply meaningful rituals into a respectful, intuitive, and modern digital experience.
The outcome was a more cohesive, scalable platform designed to evolve into a future super app.
MY ROLE
Lead product designer
Leading a multicultural team with researchers, ux and visuals. I also have to manage a small team in Saudi Arabia.
2023
A journey of a lifetime
From complexity to clarity. From product to experience. Watch the transformation.
THE CHALLENGE
The challenge was not only functional—but deeply cultural and systemic.
We needed to:
Simplify complex user journeys across multiple services
Create a scalable structure for future features and integrations
Define a visual identity that reflects the spiritual and cultural significance of the experience
Align multiple stakeholders across product, design, and strategy
Ensure the platform could evolve into a long-term ecosystem
Designing for Nusuk meant balancing clarity, scalability, and deep cultural respect.
MY ROLE
Lead Product Designer working across UX, visual design, and system definition.
I was responsible for:
Redesigning the core user experience and navigation
Defining and evolving the visual identity of the product
Contributing to the Design Language System (DLS)
Prototyping and validating new interaction models
Collaborating with cross-functional teams across multiple workstreams
This work was developed in a highly collaborative and multicultural environment, working closely with stakeholders and domain experts.
APPROACH
We approached the project through parallel workstreams, combining strategy, UX, and visual design.
We analysed existing flows, rapidly prototyped new structures, and worked closely with stakeholders through co-creation workshops to align decisions early. The visual identity evolved in parallel with the experience, ensuring consistency from the start.
This approach allowed us to move fast while building a scalable foundation for the future.
Restructuring the experience
One of the key challenges was reorganizing the information architecture to support current and future services.
We redefined the product into clear, scalable sections:
Faith → daily tools and religious practices
My Journey → planning and managing the pilgrimage
Nusuk Pass → identity and access across touchpoints
Community & Services → discovery, learning, and future integrations
This structure created a clearer mental model for users and enabled the platform to scale over time
Defining a new visual language
We created a new visual identity that translates Nusuk’s cultural and spiritual values into a modern digital experience.
The goal was to balance:
Respect and cultural sensitivity
Clarity and usability
Emotional resonance
Consistency across platforms
The visual system was co-created and iterated with stakeholders to ensure it was both meaningful and scalable.
To ensure consistency and scalability, we established the foundations of a Design Language System. This included Core UI components and patterns, visual guidelines and usage principles, foundations for accessibility and adaptability and integration with localization workflows.
The system was designed to support multiple teams and enable efficient delivery across the ecosystem (web and app).
Prototyping and validation
We developed interactive prototypes to validate key decisions early in the process.
This allowed us to test new navigation models, evaluate usability improvements, gather early feedback from stakeholders and iterate quickly before development. Prototyping became a key tool to align teams and reduce uncertainty.
PRODUCT
The work extended beyond the mobile experience.
We aligned the website and other digital touchpoints with the new visual identity, creating a cohesive brand experience across both digital and physical moments of the pilgrimage. This helped transform Nusuk from a set of disconnected services into a unified, end-to-end platform.
The project set the foundation for Nusuk’s long-term vision and continuous evolution.
The app provided rich, guided content to support pilgrims throughout their journey, available in 23 different languages.
We designed over 400 screens to bring the full experience to life, supporting Nusuk’s vision of becoming a super app for the global Muslim community.
Including a marketplace designed to help pilgrims easily find and purchase everything they need for their journey.
REFLECTION
Designing Nusuk was more than a product challenge—it was a deeply human experience.
None of us on the team were Muslim, which meant we had to go beyond assumptions and truly understand what this journey represents. We worked closely with people on the ground, learning about rituals, habits, and meanings—how they pray, when, why, and what this pilgrimage means in their lives.
Every screen carried a responsibility. It wasn’t just about usability, but about respect.
This process changed how I think about design. It pushed me to listen more, to question more, and to design with empathy at a much deeper level. It’s an experience I will never forget.
Presenting this work in Riyadh, at that level, reinforced the weight and impact of what we were building.
This project taught me that great design is not just about solving problems—it’s about understanding people, building meaningful systems, and creating something that can grow with them over time.
It wasn’t just about improving a product—but understanding what this experience means to millions of people.
We designed everything—from brand and identity to icons, app, web, and physical materials. Every color, every detail carries meaning. Everything is connected.