XCover
XCover is a digital solution designed to transform how people spend their leisure time, discover new activities, and network with like-minded individuals.
About the Project
XCover (Made from words Explore + Discover) is a mobile product designed to solve a modern lifestyle friction point: the fragmentation, high cost, and decision fatigue associated with planning leisure time. Evolving from an intensive research task, XCover shifts the discovery paradigm from endless social media scrolling to an intelligent, personalized recommendation engine.
Context: Product Design Technical Challenge
Core Objective: Empower users to maximize their free time through a personalized, centralized discovery and scheduling platform that respects individual preferences and budget constraints.
Problem Space
Conducted Survey Results
Planning leisure activities in Baku is an fragmented experience. While citizens have free time, a staggering 64% of people feel their current utilization of leisure time "could be better," and 15.6% are actively dissatisfied.
What the data showed:
People want better options: 64% of people told me that how they spend their free time "could be better," and 15.6% are not satisfied with it at all.
Too much social media scrolling: Over 91% of people rely entirely on social media to find things to do, and 74% rely on word-of-mouth. There isn't a single, reliable place to look.
Bad local apps: Existing local event sites are hard to use, give very little information, and sometimes freeze when you try to buy a ticket.
No personalization: Apps don't care about your budget or interests—they just show the same generic list to everyone.
Design Solution
Smart Onboarding
Instead of throwing a generic list at the user, the app starts by asking three simple questions: your job, who you like to spend time with, and your favorite hobbies. This lets the app customize your feed instantly.
Personalized Home Screen
The home screen greets the user directly and tells them exactly what is happening today (e.g., "Hi Fuad, there are 4 new events in your area").
Quick Filters: Users can click simple tags like "For You," "Restaurants," or "Parks" to sort activities quickly.
Today's Schedule: I added a calendar strip right on the home screen. This lets busy users look at their daily schedule and see exactly where a new event can fit into their day without leaving the app.
Event Details
When a user clicks on a place, they see only the most important details right away: the price level, real user reviews, and how many minutes walk it is from their location.
How the App Makes Money
A great app also needs a realistic way to make money. I designed two simple revenue streams for XCover
Sponsored Ads: Local businesses can pay to have their café or event show up at the top of search results. These look just like regular posts so they don't ruin the clean layout of the app.
XCover Pro Subscription: Users can pay $3.99 a month or $35.99 a year to unlock premium features. This completely removes all ads, gives them access to exclusive private events, and unlocks new activity categories
Thank You!
Thank you so much for taking the time to read through my case study! I really enjoyed working on XCover because it allowed me to take real frustrations from people in my city and turn them into a clean, working app design.
