As a freelance product designer at TomTom in Amsterdam, I worked on both the mobile companion app and the behaviour of their latest consumer device. My role combined UI and UX design with device-level behavior design, prototyping and close collaboration with hardware, design and product teams.
Type — Product design, UI/UX, prototyping, device UX
Company — TomTom
Role — Product designer
Company — TomTom
Role — Product designer
Year — 2025
Onboarding & first-time setup
The first experience with the product happens during setup, so I designed the entire onboarding flow guiding users through pairing and first-time use.
The flow breaks down technical steps into a simple sequence with clear visual cues linked to the physical device. When pairing fails or connection drops, the app responds with gentle recovery paths rather than abstract error messages. Motion and small interaction details help users understand what is happening without overwhelming them.
The result is a setup experience that feels approachable and reduces the cognitive effort typically associated with hardware onboarding.
Tutorials
To help users quickly understand the device, I designed short in-app tutorials that explain core light and sound behaviours. Each micro-lesson shows a single pattern with precise timing and simple context, so users learn by seeing rather than reading. The tutorials are optional, calm, and easy to revisit, giving drivers confidence without adding friction to the experience.
Companion app
The companion app is where users control and understand the device, so clarity and restraint were essential. I designed the full set of screens for iOS and Android, covering device status, battery information, brightness and sound controls, firmware updates and reconnection flows. The UI uses a calm visual language that reduces technical complexity and brings hardware behaviour into a familiar mobile context. The goal was to create an app that feels easy, predictable and stable even when the device itself is in a more dynamic state.
Device behaviour: light effects & sounds
A central part of the project involved defining how the physical device communicates with the driver. I designed the complete system of light and sound patterns: the colours, the timing, the rhythm, the intensity, and the subtle variations that help a driver understand what the device is trying to say. This system needed to be instantly recognisable without being distracting, and intuitive without requiring explanation.
