Increased event booking conversion by 38%
An end-to-end UI/UX design of a mobile app that lets users discover, book, and pay for exclusive events in Dubai using both traditional and cryptocurrency payments.
Fintech
Event
Role
UI/UX Designer
Timeline
2 Months
team
2 Designers, 1 PM, 3 Engineers
platform
iOS & Android
Too many apps to do one thing
Before Portl., discovering and booking exclusive events in Dubai meant juggling multiple apps. One for finding events, another for payments, and nothing that felt social or personalized. Crypto payments were almost nonexistent in the event space despite strong demand from Dubai's tech-forward audience. There was no single place that brought discovery, booking, social connection, and flexible payments together in one experience.
One app. Three core experiences.
Portl. launched with three pillars: Explore for event discovery, Engage for social connection, and Transact for seamless crypto and card payments. The result was a product that felt genuinely different from anything else in the Dubai events space.
38%
Increase in event booking conversion
45%
Faster event discovery through personalized recommendations
30%
Growth in user connections within first month of launch
What Portl. taught me
Designing for Dubai's social scene in 2 months. Here is what stayed with me.
1. Crypto UX is a trust problem first
Most users were not unfamiliar with crypto. They were uncomfortable with it. The wallet connection flow, transaction confirmation, and payment status screens all had to work harder than a normal payment flow to build confidence. Every micro-interaction in the payment flow was a trust signal. I learned that crypto UX is less about education and more about reducing the feeling of risk at every step.
2. Social features change how people use an app
Adding messaging, gifting, and mutual friend discovery transformed Portl. from a utility into something people actually wanted to open. The challenge was keeping the social layer lightweight enough not to distract from the core booking experience. Knowing when to surface social features and when to get out of the way was one of the most interesting design challenges on this project.
3. Designing for a specific city is a superpower
Portl. was not trying to be everywhere. It was built for Dubai, for a specific audience with specific tastes. That constraint made every design decision sharper. The visual language, the event card design, the tone of the copy all had to feel premium and cosmopolitan without being generic. Designing for a specific context always produces better work than designing for everyone.
What I would do differently
I would have pushed for more user testing on the crypto payment flow specifically. We shipped with assumptions about how familiar our users were with wallet connections and transaction confirmations that turned out to be partially wrong. A few rounds of usability testing on that flow alone would have saved significant iteration time post-launch.