A family event discovery app for weekend plans.

The client is a start-up building a family event discovery app. Their starting point was a familiar one for any parent: finding something to do with the children at the weekend means a dozen tabs, a few local Facebook groups and a lot of scrolling past events for the wrong age.

The listings exist — councils, libraries, venues and clubs all publish them — but none of them know that one child is four and the other is seven, or that the family would rather stay within a couple of miles. The brief was an app that answers one question quickly: what can we do this weekend that suits our kids?

We started with a short discovery phase to agree the few moments that matter: telling the app about the children, seeing this weekend's options, checking one event properly and committing to it. Everything else was built around those four steps.

Two decisions shaped the design. First, the children are the filter: ages are captured once at onboarding and applied everywhere, so no screen ever shows an event the family cannot go to. Second, one product, two surfaces: a mobile layout with a bottom tab bar for use on the go, and a desktop layout with a top navigation and a filter sidebar for planning ahead, both built from the same components.

The visual language is warm and friendly without being childish: rounded cards, clear prices and age ranges on every card, and a calm palette defined as design tokens so it can be re-themed without redrawing screens.

What we built

• Onboarding. Parents add each child with their age in a few taps; the app uses those ages everywhere else.
• Home. "Weekend wins" search by place, date and age range, category chips, editor's picks and free events nearby.
• Discover. The full list with filters for day, age range, distance, price, indoor or outdoor and tags such as hands-on, stroller-friendly or quiet.
• Map. Events plotted with their price on the pin, a numbered list alongside and a quick preview card for the selected event.
• Event page. Date, time, venue and distance, ages, price per child, spots left, what the children will get, reviews and the host, with RSVP for the whole family and a running total.
• Saved. A shortlist of events the family is considering.
• Family profile. Children and their ages, saved and upcoming events, and notification settings such as a weekly weekend digest.

Want to see it in action? Request a walkthrough and we will take you through the app.

The client has a complete, working product on desktop and mobile: seven screens that take a parent from "tell us about your kids" to a family RSVP, one component system to extend it from, and a clear, feature-by-feature basis for planning the releases that follow, such as venue accounts, payments and event feeds.

It is the way we recommend starting any consumer MVP: agree the core journey, design it properly and build it on a foundation that can grow. The same approach carries over to native apps from our mobile app developers in London. Event names, venues and families shown here have been changed, and the client is not named.