// CASE 05 · LOQUIS · TRAVEL PODCASTING
Four years before I joined, I told them what to fix.
Loquis is the Italian platform for geolocated audio stories: you walk, the place talks. In 2021 the founders asked NOIS3 to find out why the app promised more than it delivered. In 2025 I joined as Head of Design. This is the 2021 part.
4
core features reviewed: Channels, Map, Recording, Playlists
2
UX experts on the review, then one co-design workshop
2
flows redesigned end to end: listen to a story, create one
2025
the year I came back as Head of Design
01
Executive summary
The idea was strong: feel like a local, not a tourist, through stories told by people who know the place. The product was not keeping up with it. We ran an expert review of the four main features, interviewed the key stakeholders, ran a co-design workshop with them, and then rebuilt the two flows that matter, listening to a story and recording one, with as few screens as possible. The visual direction came out of the same workshop: light, friendly, with a nod to explorers' old maps.
02
Four phases
➔ Expert review of Channels, Map, Recording and Playlists
➔ Stakeholder interviews on content, quality and what the service promises
➔ Co-design workshop to align vision, mission and what users should expect
➔ To-be flows and visual design for listening and creating
Tools & tactics
Heuristic expert review
Stakeholder interviews
Co-design workshop
User flows and visual design
03
Issues discovered
➔ Content was the whole value, and there was no way to tell the good from the rest.
➔ Four features, four navigation logics: users did not know where a story lived.
➔ The map, the core promise, was the hardest surface to use.
➔ Recording a story asked too much of a first-time creator.
➔ Expectations were high on first contact and the app did not say what it was for.
Four principles from the review
Simplify
Categorise
Navigate
Make it explicit
04
Results
The 2021 work gave Loquis two cleaner flows and a visual language it kept for years. What did not happen: a research project from the outside does not change how a company builds; several findings from that review were still open when I walked in as Head of Design in October 2025. That is the honest measure of the difference between advising and owning. Today the platform counts about 2.5 million users and stories in seven languages, and my job is to fix from the inside what I diagnosed from the outside: one design practice across consumer app, hosting, licensing and the production studio, with AI applied to audio where it helps and not where it flatters.
05
Lessons learned
➔ An expert review finds the problems; only ownership fixes them
➔ When content is the product, curation is a design problem
➔ The core promise (the map) deserves the most design time, not the least
➔ A workshop that aligns vision saves more screens than a redesign