Mariama Ford
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Next
Valease™
My Role: Founder & Product Lead
Timeline: November 2022 - Present (Live Beta)
Deliverables: User research, competitive analysis, personas, wireframes, lo-fi & hi-fi prototypes, usability testing, live beta web app
Overview
Travel lovers need a way to prep for, document, and keep track of their trips in one place, without needing to be efficient, informed, and organized on someone else's terms. In the original 2022 concept, I set out to solve this with a social platform: Profile-based trip sharing, discovery feeds, and community trip-planning tools. Research told a different story.
From Social Platform to Intentional Archive: A Research-Driven Pivot
I began in 2022 by prototyping Valease™ as a social travel app — think trip profiles, a discovery feed, and community-driven trip planning. Before committing further, I ran a preliminary research phase to validate the direction:
- User Survey - I sent out a Google Forms survey to 11 anonymous participants, ages 23–65. It covered how people currently research destinations, whether they use a centralized travel list, interest in an interactive trip-planning tool, and what makes a travel app genuinely useful versus just "fun."
^ User research survey for 2022 version of Valease™
- Competitive Analysis - Next came evaluation of direct and adjacent competitors (TripAdvisor, Kayak, Instagram) across format, strengths, and limitations. The clearest gap: None of them were designed to help travelers connect with and revisit their own memories. They were built for planning logistics or broadcasting to others, not reflection.
^ Competitive analysis results for the 2022 version of Valease™
- Personas & Storyboards - I created research-based personas (e.g. "Cam Cooper," a busy young professional who travels solo and wants ease, not another feed to manage) and storyboarded their end-to-end journeys to pressure-test where a social model would actually add friction rather than value.
^ User persona and storyboards for 2022 version of Valease™
- Usability Testing - I built lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes of the social-model concept and tested both with 8 travelers, ages 23–65, measuring time on task, error rates, and System Usability Scale (SUS) score. The results reinforced what the earlier research was already pointing to: The issues weren't just interface friction, they were signs that the underlying model was working against what people actually wanted from the app:
- 6 of 8 users found key feature placement (e.g. the back button) obstructive to the flow
- 7 of 8 were frustrated by the drop-down list structure
- 5 of 8 noted a lack of button functionality
- Even after interface refinements in the hi-fi round, users rated the experience easy to use and visually appealing, but the underlying social-first structure — feeds, trending pages, public bucket lists — still didn't match what the survey and personas said travelers actually wanted: a calmer, more private way to hold onto memories, not another platform to perform on
Discovery & Research (2026 Redirection)
Carrying the pivot forward, I identified three lightweight, low-friction memory types that matched how people already instinctively capture a moment, without asking them to complete a heavier journaling ritual mid-trip:
- Visual - instinctively reaching for a photo
- Verbal - a quick voice memo when a moment felt worth narrating in the moment
- Written - a short note when a feeling needed more context than an image or recording could give
Designing the 2026 Experience
The redesigned IA replaced feed-based navigation (Trending, Bucket List, Discover) with a structure built around three simple states: Plan Ahead, Live in the Moment, and Treasure Forever. Every decision was filtered through a privacy-first principle derived from research results: Memories belong to the user, shared only when and how they choose, with no public feed, likes, or followers. This structural shift directly answered what usability testing had already surfaced: Travelers didn't want another feed to browse, they wanted a system built around holding onto their own moments.
VALEASE™
Your Travel Stories
Document your journeys with photos, voice memos & notes
Active
Dublin, IE
Jan 14, 2026 - Mar 24, 2026
47
Photos
8
Voice
5
Notes
View /Add Memories
Upcoming
Madrid, ES
Jun 8, 2026 - Jun 15, 2026
0
Photos
0
Voice
0
Notes
Archived
Paris, FR
Oct 10, 2026 - Oct 18, 2026
132
Photos
15
Voice
12
Notes
View Archive
New Adventure
Start documenting
3
Trips
179
Photos
23
Voice Memos
17
Notes
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
^ Hi-fi screens for the 2026 (current) version of Valease™
Accessibility & Brand
Font and color choices in the style guide were made with accessibility in mind, not just aesthetics. Josefin Sans was chosen for headings and UI because its clear, evenly-weighted letterforms stay legible at small sizes and across weights. Lora handles body text specifically because serif fonts with open counters support sustained readability in longer passages, where users spend more time reading. The decorative Lobster script is scoped to the wordmark only — it's never used for any text a user needs to read to complete an action, since decorative fonts reduce legibility exactly where clarity matters most. The palette pairs saturated brand colors with a true dark "Deep Night" tone, giving the system genuine contrast options for text and UI beyond soft mid-tones alone.
Logo Brand Style Sheet
MAIN LOGO
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
SUB MARK / icon
V
V
COLOURS
Deep Emerald
#0C5A48
Vivid Blue
#00AEFF
Vivid Green
#2AD062
Ice Blue
#E3F5FF
Soft Gray
#CBD5E1
Graystone
#364153
FONTS
Josefin Sans — Headings & UI
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lora — Body & Long-form
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lobster — Wordmark Only
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
© 2026 Valease™ · Brand Style Sheet v1.0
Challenges
The core challenge was letting go of a direction I'd already partially built. The 2022 social concept had real design investment behind it, but the research was clear that the market didn't need another feed; it needed a quieter alternative. Committing to a pivot rather than defending sunk work was the harder, and ultimately more valuable, design decision.
Outcome
Valease™ shipped as a live beta in 2026 with the full updated core experience: Trip creation, memory logging across all three formats, and trip revisiting. As of August 2026, the beta cohort has logged 176 memories (57% photos, 33% notes, 10% voice memos) across 17 trips, with users averaging 3.4 trips and 35 memories each (one user documented a single trip spanning 70 days). The engagement pattern validates the core product hypothesis: Once someone starts using Valease™, they return to it across multiple trips rather than trying it once and dropping off. It's a direct result of the pivot the 2022 research made necessary — a quieter, more intentional product than the one I originally set out to build.
176
Memories Logged
17
Trips
3.4
Per User
^ Valease™ beta usage statistics, based on 5 active testers, as of August 6, 2026
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Let’s work together.
mariamaford.com
GET IN TOUCH
Valease™
MOBILE-FIRST Web App | Figma + Custom Dev Collab with FlowStatE UX | 2022 - Present (Live Beta)
My Role: Founder & Product Lead
Timeline: November 2022 - Present (Live Beta)
Deliverables: User research, competitive analysis, personas, wireframes, lo-fi & hi-fi prototypes, usability testing, live beta web app
Overview
Travel lovers need a way to prep for, document, and keep track of their trips in one place, without needing to be efficient, informed, and organized on someone else's terms. In the original 2022 concept, I set out to solve this with a social platform: Profile-based trip sharing, discovery feeds, and community trip-planning tools. Research told a different story.
From Social Platform to Intentional Archive: A Research-Driven Pivot
I began in 2022 by prototyping Valease™ as a social travel app — think trip profiles, a discovery feed, and community-driven trip planning. Before committing further, I ran a preliminary research phase to validate the direction:
- User Survey - I sent out a Google Forms survey to 11 anonymous participants, ages 23–65. It covered how people currently research destinations, whether they use a centralized travel list, interest in an interactive trip-planning tool, and what makes a travel app genuinely useful versus just "fun."
^ User research survey for 2022 version of Valease™
- Competitive Analysis - Next came evaluation of direct and adjacent competitors (TripAdvisor, Kayak, Instagram) across format, strengths, and limitations. The clearest gap: None of them were designed to help travelers connect with and revisit their own memories. They were built for planning logistics or broadcasting to others, not reflection.
^ Competitive analysis results for the 2022 version of Valease™
- Personas & Storyboards - I created research-based personas (e.g. "Cam Cooper," a busy young professional who travels solo and wants ease, not another feed to manage) and storyboarded their end-to-end journeys to pressure-test where a social model would actually add friction rather than value.
^ User persona and storyboards for 2022 version of Valease™
- Usability Testing - I built lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes of the social-model concept and tested both with 8 travelers, ages 23–65, measuring time on task, error rates, and System Usability Scale (SUS) score. The results reinforced what the earlier research was already pointing to: The issues weren't just interface friction, they were signs that the underlying model was working against what people actually wanted from the app:
- 6 of 8 users found key feature placement (e.g. the back button) obstructive to the flow
- 7 of 8 were frustrated by the drop-down list structure
- 5 of 8 noted a lack of button functionality
- Even after interface refinements in the hi-fi round, users rated the experience easy to use and visually appealing, but the underlying social-first structure — feeds, trending pages, public bucket lists — still didn't match what the survey and personas said travelers actually wanted: a calmer, more private way to hold onto memories, not another platform to perform on
Discovery & Research (2026 Redirection)
Carrying the pivot forward, I identified three lightweight, low-friction memory types that matched how people already instinctively capture a moment, without asking them to complete a heavier journaling ritual mid-trip:
- Visual - instinctively reaching for a photo
- Verbal - a quick voice memo when a moment felt worth narrating in the moment
- Written - a short note when a feeling needed more context than an image or recording could give
Designing the 2026 Experience
The redesigned IA replaced feed-based navigation (Trending, Bucket List, Discover) with a structure built around three simple states: Plan Ahead, Live in the Moment, and Treasure Forever. Every decision was filtered through a privacy-first principle derived from research results: Memories belong to the user, shared only when and how they choose, with no public feed, likes, or followers. This structural shift directly answered what usability testing had already surfaced: Travelers didn't want another feed to browse, they wanted a system built around holding onto their own moments.
VALEASE™
Your Travel Stories
Document your journeys with photos, voice memos & notes
Active
Dublin, IE
Jan 14, 2026 - Mar 24, 2026
47
Photos
8
Voice
5
Notes
View /Add Memories
Upcoming
Madrid, ES
Jun 8, 2026 - Jun 15, 2026
0
Photos
0
Voice
0
Notes
Archived
Paris, FR
Oct 10, 2026 - Oct 18, 2026
132
Photos
15
Voice
12
Notes
View Archive
New Adventure
Start documenting
3
Trips
179
Photos
23
Voice Memos
17
Notes
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
^ Hi-fi screens for the 2026 (current) version of Valease™
Accessibility & Brand
Font and color choices in the style guide were made with accessibility in mind, not just aesthetics. Josefin Sans was chosen for headings and UI because its clear, evenly-weighted letterforms stay legible at small sizes and across weights. Lora handles body text specifically because serif fonts with open counters support sustained readability in longer passages, where users spend more time reading. The decorative Lobster script is scoped to the wordmark only — it's never used for any text a user needs to read to complete an action, since decorative fonts reduce legibility exactly where clarity matters most. The palette pairs saturated brand colors with a true dark "Deep Night" tone, giving the system genuine contrast options for text and UI beyond soft mid-tones alone.
Logo Brand Style Sheet
MAIN LOGO
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
SUB MARK / icon
V
V
COLOURS
Deep Emerald
#0C5A48
Vivid Blue
#00AEFF
Vivid Green
#2AD062
Ice Blue
#E3F5FF
Soft Gray
#CBD5E1
Graystone
#364153
FONTS
Josefin Sans — Headings & UI
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lora — Body & Long-form
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lobster — Wordmark Only
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
© 2026 Valease™ · Brand Style Sheet v1.0
Challenges
The core challenge was letting go of a direction I'd already partially built. The 2022 social concept had real design investment behind it, but the research was clear that the market didn't need another feed; it needed a quieter alternative. Committing to a pivot rather than defending sunk work was the harder, and ultimately more valuable, design decision.
Outcome
Valease™ shipped as a live beta in 2026 with the full updated core experience: Trip creation, memory logging across all three formats, and trip revisiting. As of August 2026, the beta cohort has logged 176 memories (57% photos, 33% notes, 10% voice memos) across 17 trips, with users averaging 3.4 trips and 35 memories each (one user documented a single trip spanning 70 days). The engagement pattern validates the core product hypothesis: Once someone starts using Valease™, they return to it across multiple trips rather than trying it once and dropping off. It's a direct result of the pivot the 2022 research made necessary — a quieter, more intentional product than the one I originally set out to build.
176
Memories Logged
17
Trips
3.4
Per User
^ Valease™ beta usage statistics, based on 5 active testers, as of August 6, 2026
Valease™
My Role: Founder & Product Lead
Timeline: November 2022 - Present (Live Beta)
Deliverables: User research, competitive analysis, personas, wireframes, lo-fi & hi-fi prototypes, usability testing, live beta web app
Overview
Travel lovers need a way to prep for, document, and keep track of their trips in one place, without needing to be efficient, informed, and organized on someone else's terms. In the original 2022 concept, I set out to solve this with a social platform: Profile-based trip sharing, discovery feeds, and community trip-planning tools. Research told a different story.
From Social Platform to Intentional Archive: A Research-Driven Pivot
I began in 2022 by prototyping Valease™ as a social travel app — think trip profiles, a discovery feed, and community-driven trip planning. Before committing further, I ran a preliminary research phase to validate the direction:
- User Survey - I sent out a Google Forms survey to 11 anonymous participants, ages 23–65. It covered how people currently research destinations, whether they use a centralized travel list, interest in an interactive trip-planning tool, and what makes a travel app genuinely useful versus just "fun."
^ User research survey for 2022 version of Valease™
- Competitive Analysis - Next came evaluation of direct and adjacent competitors (TripAdvisor, Kayak, Instagram) across format, strengths, and limitations. The clearest gap: None of them were designed to help travelers connect with and revisit their own memories. They were built for planning logistics or broadcasting to others, not reflection.
^ Competitive analysis results for the 2022 version of Valease™
- Personas & Storyboards - I created research-based personas (e.g. "Cam Cooper," a busy young professional who travels solo and wants ease, not another feed to manage) and storyboarded their end-to-end journeys to pressure-test where a social model would actually add friction rather than value.
^ User persona and storyboards for 2022 version of Valease™
- Usability Testing - I built lo-fi and hi-fi prototypes of the social-model concept and tested both with 8 travelers, ages 23–65, measuring time on task, error rates, and System Usability Scale (SUS) score. The results reinforced what the earlier research was already pointing to: The issues weren't just interface friction, they were signs that the underlying model was working against what people actually wanted from the app:
- 6 of 8 users found key feature placement (e.g. the back button) obstructive to the flow
- 7 of 8 were frustrated by the drop-down list structure
- 5 of 8 noted a lack of button functionality
- Even after interface refinements in the hi-fi round, users rated the experience easy to use and visually appealing, but the underlying social-first structure — feeds, trending pages, public bucket lists — still didn't match what the survey and personas said travelers actually wanted: a calmer, more private way to hold onto memories, not another platform to perform on
Discovery & Research (2026 Redirection)
Carrying the pivot forward, I identified three lightweight, low-friction memory types that matched how people already instinctively capture a moment, without asking them to complete a heavier journaling ritual mid-trip:
- Visual - instinctively reaching for a photo
- Verbal - a quick voice memo when a moment felt worth narrating in the moment
- Written - a short note when a feeling needed more context than an image or recording could give
Designing the 2026 Experience
The redesigned IA replaced feed-based navigation (Trending, Bucket List, Discover) with a structure built around three simple states: Plan Ahead, Live in the Moment, and Treasure Forever. Every decision was filtered through a privacy-first principle derived from research results: Memories belong to the user, shared only when and how they choose, with no public feed, likes, or followers. This structural shift directly answered what usability testing had already surfaced: Travelers didn't want another feed to browse, they wanted a system built around holding onto their own moments.
VALEASE™
Your Travel Stories
Document your journeys with photos, voice memos & notes
Active
Dublin, IE
Jan 14, 2026 - Mar 24, 2026
47
Photos
8
Voice
5
Notes
View /Add Memories
Upcoming
Madrid, ES
Jun 8, 2026 - Jun 15, 2026
0
Photos
0
Voice
0
Notes
Archived
Paris, FR
Oct 10, 2026 - Oct 18, 2026
132
Photos
15
Voice
12
Notes
View Archive
New Adventure
Start documenting
3
Trips
179
Photos
23
Voice Memos
17
Notes
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
VALEASE™
Temple Bar First Impressions
Day 1 • 2:45
Irish Phrases
Day 1 • 1:30
Cliffs of Moher Experience
Day 2 • 4:12
Pub Music Session
Day 3 • 3:20
Dublin, IE
Jan 14 - Mar 24
47 photos
8 memos
5 notes
All
Photos
Voice Memos
Itinerary
^ Hi-fi screens for the 2026 (current) version of Valease™
Accessibility & Brand
Font and color choices in the style guide were made with accessibility in mind, not just aesthetics. Josefin Sans was chosen for headings and UI because its clear, evenly-weighted letterforms stay legible at small sizes and across weights. Lora handles body text specifically because serif fonts with open counters support sustained readability in longer passages, where users spend more time reading. The decorative Lobster script is scoped to the wordmark only — it's never used for any text a user needs to read to complete an action, since decorative fonts reduce legibility exactly where clarity matters most. The palette pairs saturated brand colors with a true dark "Deep Night" tone, giving the system genuine contrast options for text and UI beyond soft mid-tones alone.
Logo Brand Style Sheet
MAIN LOGO
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
VALEASE ™
Travel · Document · Relive
SUB MARK / icon
V
V
COLOURS
Deep Emerald
#0C5A48
Vivid Blue
#00AEFF
Vivid Green
#2AD062
Ice Blue
#E3F5FF
Soft Gray
#CBD5E1
Smokey
#364153
FONTS
Josefin Sans — Headings & UI
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lora — Body & Long-form
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890 !@#$%&
Lobster — Wordmark Only
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
1234567890
© 2026 Valease™ · Brand Style Sheet v1.0
Challenges
The core challenge was letting go of a direction I'd already partially built. The 2022 social concept had real design investment behind it, but the research was clear that the market didn't need another feed; it needed a quieter alternative. Committing to a pivot rather than defending sunk work was the harder, and ultimately more valuable, design decision.
Outcome
Valease™ shipped as a live beta in 2026 with the full updated core experience: Trip creation, memory logging across all three formats, and trip revisiting. As of August 2026, the beta cohort has logged 176 memories (57% photos, 33% notes, 10% voice memos) across 17 trips, with users averaging 3.4 trips and 35 memories each (one user documented a single trip spanning 70 days). The engagement pattern validates the core product hypothesis: Once someone starts using Valease™, they return to it across multiple trips rather than trying it once and dropping off. It's a direct result of the pivot the 2022 research made necessary — a quieter, more intentional product than the one I originally set out to build.
176
Memories Logged
17
Trips
3.4
Per User
^ Valease™ beta usage statistics, based on 5 active testers, as of August 6, 2026