A mobile travel app highlighting noteworthy burials in cemeteries around the world.
The Problem
Traveling often leads to unexpected discoveries—and for me and my wife, cemeteries became a unique way to explore new cities. They're often beautifully maintained public spaces, offering a window into local culture, history, and architecture. Beyond this, finding the burial sites of famous or historically significant individuals adds a surprising sense of excitement.
The challenge: How could we create a mobile app that guides travelers to nearby cemeteries while highlighting notable burials in an engaging, accessible, and playful way?
The Solution
Design a lightweight, intuitive mobile app that:
- Identifies nearby cemeteries using location services.
- Lists notable burials categorized by industry or contribution (Music, Film, Art, Literature, etc.).
- Balances informative content with a playful, approachable interface to make the subject matter less morbid and more exploratory.
The Responsibilities
- UI Design
- UX Design
- Prototyping
The UI & DESIGN APPROACH
Cemeteries can feel dark or somber, so the UI needed to be bright, playful, and welcoming. Familiarity was key—rather than reinventing navigation, I leveraged existing map paradigms, ensuring users could explore locations with minimal learning curve.
I created custom icons for each burial category, combining traditional visual cues with elements inspired by cemeteries to maintain a unique, cohesive visual language.
The Iterations & Refinement
Over time, I revisited the design with accessibility in mind. For example:
- The original white-on-green text was hard to read, so color contrast adjustments were made to meet accessibility standards.
- Considering data scalability, I recognized that a global cemetery database would be challenging to implement for a small team, highlighting the need for phased features and prioritization.
- Map interactions and category filters were refined after testing sketches and early prototypes to simplify navigation and reduce cognitive load.
The Results & Learnings
This project was a personal initiative, so its success was measured by clarity of concept, usability, and visual design rather than user adoption.
- Designing for a niche, unusual use case requires balancing novelty with user familiarity.
- Accessibility and readability must always be prioritized, even in playful designs.
- Concept validation and iterative refinement are crucial—even in personal projects—before considering technical feasibility or scaling.
While “Who's Buried Here?” remains a concept, the project helped solidify my approach to user-centered design, accessibility, and iterative UI/UX development—principles I carry forward in larger, more complex projects like Headversity.