Putting a region in your pocket: restructuring the Hibiny regional portal app

Product

Hibiny.com is the main information platform of the Murmansk region, above the polar circle. For most people living there it is not "a news site": it is where you check what happened overnight, find a job, sell a car, rent a flat, see what's playing at the cinema, and look up a phone number. A news outlet and a regional classifieds platform in one product.

Challenge

The app already existed, but hardly anyone used it. The problem wasn’t with the visual design. The app tried to be a full-fledged portal: dozens of sections, a navigation model designed for desktop computers, all squeezed onto a 5-inch screen. Not exactly what someone standing at a bus stop in February needs on their phone.

Process

Deciding what the app is not

The first deliverable wasn't a screen — it was a scope. I went through the portal's sections and separated the ones with genuine mobile intent (short, frequent, checked-on-the-go) from the ones that belong to a desk and a large screen.

A navigation model that fits a thumb

With the scope settled, the structure followed: a flat, shallow hierarchy with a small number of persistent top-level entries, and everything else reachable in one or two taps from a feed. No nested menus, no hidden gestures carrying primary actions.

Designing for two platforms without designing twice

The app shipped on iOS and Android. Rather than drawing two parallel sets of screens, I built one component set with platform-specific behaviour where it mattered: navigation patterns, system controls, back behaviour. And shared everything else: type scale, spacing, card structure, states.

Outcomes

The app was released on both platforms and quickly became the number one regional news app, serving a population of around 650,000. Since then, the portal itself has continued to grow, and its model has been replicated for other regions.