Prague Zoo App

Prague Zoo welcomes millions of visitors every year, yet the market lacked a functional mobile app that would make navigating the grounds easier. Together with a small, motivated team of student developers from Czech IT Academy (average age just 21), we set out to build a product that would radically improve the visitor experience at Prague Zoo and set a new standard for apps in this segment.

A thorough market review showed that most zoo apps worldwide were outdated, hard to use, and unfriendly (the only global exceptions were the apps in Singapore and Rotterdam).

Visitors often got lost in the vast, hilly grounds of Prague Zoo. Printed folded DL leaflets were impractical for quick orientation and lacked up-to-date information about events, feedings, or the location of refreshments and attractions.

Prague Zoo also lacked an effective direct digital channel for ticket sales. The physical box offices at the entrances were overwhelmed, which hurt the first impression and held back the potential for quick conversions.

As the only designer on the team, I carried full responsibility for the visual and functional side of the app. My work included:

Complete UX and UI design in Figma in just three months.

A full rework, digitization, and vector optimization of the map assets.

Creating illustrations, custom icons for navigating the grounds, and motion design (onboarding animations).

Given the tight three-month deadline, the design process had to be fast and highly agile. The biggest challenges appeared in three areas:

Map optimization: I found that the supplied map was offset by about 3 meters against the GPS coordinates of the Seznam.cz API, and the SVG file was too large for mobile (500 kB). I redrew the whole map, geometrically recalibrated it, and simplified the curves — cutting the file size down to 63 kB, so it works instantly even on slow phones.

Pushing past animation limits: Motion design isn't my strength and I struggled with After Effects at first. But I knew the onboarding needed nice animations to educate users. I overcame the challenge and the client was happy with the result.

Custom icons: To make orientation instant, I designed a set of icons for specific places (main entrance, lower and upper cable-car stations).

The result is a fully native, visually clean mobile app with a clear information architecture. It features an interactive, instantly loading map synced with the visitor's real location, clear categories (animals, stalls, attractions), integrated ticket sales, and an animated onboarding that teaches users how to use the app right away.

The project was a huge success and clearly proved that even a student team can build a world-class product.

User impact: The app holds an exceptional 4.85 out of 5 rating on both Google Play and the App Store, confirming high satisfaction with its design and functionality.

Business impact: In the first three months the app reached 10,000 downloads and grew to 54,000 active users by mid-June 2026. Ticket revenue generated purely through the app exceeded 2.8 million CZK, significantly relieving the physical box offices.