WelcomeMN

Product Designer (Solo) 8 weeks Web Civic tech 2026

A resource platform for immigrants navigating their first year in the U.S. See it live ↗

OVERVIEW

Newly arrived immigrants face an overwhelming first year in the U.S., navigating transportation, employment, paperwork, and community, often in a new language and without clear guidance.

WelcomeMN is a localized, web-based resource platform designed to reduce the cognitive and emotional load of that first year by consolidating fragmented resources into a single, trusted, accessible experience.

This project is close to me. I grew up watching my family sponsor relatives immigrating to the U.S. and saw how much emotional, logistical, and linguistic labor the process required. When I later spoke directly with immigrants who had arrived within the past five years, I heard the same story: confusion, isolation, and reliance on word-of-mouth for critical information.

I wanted to design a resource that helped logistically guide what immigrants needed to do, but just as importantly, offer emotional motivation for the difficult journey.

WHAT I FOUND

Five semi-structured interviews with immigrants who arrived in the U.S. within the past five years. Different countries of origin, strikingly overlapping experiences.

1. Information exists — but it's fragmented

"You just ask around. There's no one place."

Resources are scattered across agencies, languages, and websites.

Design implication: A single, trusted, localized source of truth is missing.

2. Employment is social, not systemic

"My cousin found me a job at a factory."

Most users found work through personal networks, not official job boards.

Design implication: Employment resources should feel community-verified, not bureaucratic.

3. Emotional isolation is as hard as logistics

"You feel like no one else is going through it."

The first year felt lonely even when living with family.

Design implication: A successful tool must validate emotions, not just deliver information.

4. Paperwork without language support is paralyzing

"Paperwork was impossible without help."

Forms and official instructions created anxiety, especially when mistakes felt high-stakes and irreversible.

Design implication: Information must be simplified, contextualized, and emotionally low-pressure.

5. Driving = Freedom

"It's hard to feel free without being able to drive."

Mobility was the turning point for independence. Without driving, users struggled to access work, education, and social life, especially in Minnesota.

Design implication: Surface driving and DMV support early, with translated information and language-specific driving schools.

RESEARCH ARTIFACTS

How Might We synthesis

Using interview insights, I reframed each finding into HMW questions then mapped them against a MoSCoW framework to prioritize the MVP. Multilingual guidance and emotional progress tracking moved immediately to must-haves. Visual guidance was prioritized over dense text.

Storyboarding Linh's first year

I storyboarded a persona's first 6–12 months to understand how emotions fluctuate alongside practical tasks. The key insight: progress is not linear, and emotional distress often coincides with bureaucratic friction. Small wins create outsized confidence. This shaped the decision to design for emotional progress, not just task completion.

THE SYSTEM PROBLEM

Ultimately, this is an information architecture problem before it's a design problem.

Resources exist. The system that surfaces them doesn't. Everything is optimized for the institution publishing it, not the person trying to navigate it. The challenge was consolidation, hierarchy, and trust: deciding what surfaces first, what language it speaks, and whether it feels built for the person reading it.

That framing shaped every decision: category-based navigation over chronological checklists, phone-first contact options, and a language selector visible in top navigation.

Early wireframes exploring home, timeline navigation, resource categories, and transportation before the web first pivot.

THE DECISION THAT MATTERED

I initially designed a mobile app and created wireframes that tested onboarding and navigation flows that felt promising in the abstract. This early exploration helped clarify what information users needed upfront and how a guided experience might feel.

Then interviews surfaced something I hadn't anticipated: Many newly arrived immigrants weren't hesitant to download apps because of storage or data. They just didn't have the habit. Information spread through community: a link shared in a WhatsApp group, a URL passed at a cultural center, something a cousin texted you. Nobody was going looking for an app. They were receiving links.

I decided a browser-based experience better aligned with user behavior and allowed information to be accessed immediately, shared easily, and used across devices without downloads or account creation. One less barrier during an already overwhelming transition.

The mobile-first instinct was mine. The web-first solution came from the people I was designing for.

Early mobile wireframes exploring onboarding and navigation, built to understand the problem before the platform decision was made.

KEY DESIGN DECISIONS

From timeline to categories

My first design used a prescriptive timeline (Week 1, Month 1, Month 3). Testing revealed the word "should" was doing damage. Users felt pressure from tasks they weren't ready for. I replaced the timeline with category-based quick access: Driving, Work, Healthcare, Community. Navigate by need, not deadline. Immigration isn't linear. The architecture shouldn't pretend it is.

Dashboard with category-based quick access: Driving, Documents, Healthcare, Housing, Banking, Community — After: category-based quick access

Settlement timeline with Week 1, Month 1, Month 3 tabs and suggested tasks — Before: prescriptive settlement timeline

Phone numbers over links

Users instinctively looked for phone numbers even when links were available. For legal aid, emergency assistance, and community organizations, speaking to a person felt safer than clicking a link. I surfaced phone-first contact options alongside web links for every high-stakes category.

Emergency quick access

Users asked: "What if something is wrong? Where do I go right now?" I introduced a persistent "Need Help Now?" entry point linking to shelter, food assistance, and crisis lines, accessible from any page. Urgency needed its own affordance.