Arrival Advisor
2017-2021Overview
Arrival Advisor, now called "Welcome to Canada", is a multilingual iOS & Android app helping immigrants and refugees start life in Canada. As its founding designer, I spearheaded its design and launch from concept to 10K+ users through community co-design with newcomers, settlement organizations, and government partners.
Company
PeaceGeeks
Role
Design Lead
0-1, UX, UI, co-design, research, strategy
tl;dr
- Building a 0→1 civic tech product from concept to 10K+ users
- Facilitating participatory design with newcomers and 20+ settlement organizations and government stakeholders
- Multilingual product development across 8 languages including RTL
- Arrival Advisor was a Google.org Impact Challenge Canada awardee and Vancouver UX Awards finalist!
Access to information is one of the biggest barriers to successful resettlement
Despite countless free, government-funded services designed to help Canada's 300,000+ annual new arrivals, 70% don't know these free services exist, and 1 in 4 newcomers who did know about them didn't know how to use them.
In response to the Syrian refugee crisis, Metro Vancouver settlement organizations approached PeaceGeeks to create a digital solution bridging this gap.
Constraints
- Using partner content allowed us to decentralize content maintenance, but limited our ability to control data quality, requiring UX compromises.
- Funding realities: Grant applications forced us to commit to solutions before research began, requiring tactful negotiation when research suggested better solutions. Limited resources meant launching basic versions without time to refine them.
Learning with community
As PeaceGeeks' first design employee, I worked with a small team of developers and staff, engaging newcomers, frontline workers, and community partners, to build this product from the ground up. With my team, I led an inclusive discovery process rooted in community partnership.
Discovery process
Formed lived experience committees with newcomers, frontline workers, and settlement leaders who guided product strategy from the start 
Co-facilitated co-design sessions and interviews at English classes and workshops with refugee youth groups to surface barriers in accessing services 
Ran surveys and interviews with support from local champions to include those less connected/disconnected to formal settlement systems
Key insights from discovery
If not for family or friends' help, many newcomers felt lost on what to do when they arrived — where to get ID, how to find housing, etc. Their experiences felt haphazard, piecing together disparate information from government websites, forums, word-of-mouth, and being bounced between service providers. They were often waiting — to get ID, to get into an English class — and wished there was a “next step” they could take to avoid wasting time.
Service availability and eligibility depend on factors like immigration status and language skills. Also, settlement services often changed or got de-funded. Most directories were incomplete, out of date, or hard to interpret, due to inability to upkeep data over time.
Finding trusted resources in one's own language remained a major barrier, especially for recent arrivals with limited English.
Some users, especially refugee claimants or those from politically repressive countries, expressed reluctance to share personal information unless they knew the source was safe and credible.
Rolling research
As we built our ideas, I worked with my team establish lightweight testing cycles every 2–4 weeks with 5–6 users, training team members to observe sessions and tracking findings in our design backlog.
Designing the multilingual app for newcomers
1. Content architecture for guided recommendations
Our partners initially wanted us to build a searchable service map, but our research revealed a fundamental problem: newcomers often didn't know what to search for in the first place.
Our solution focused on guidance rather than search. I collaborated with newcomers and frontline staff to map common needs across settlement stages, such as: arrival, legal paperwork, housing, language learning.
We audited partner content and created a tagging system based on user characteristics like immigration status, family situation, language, and more. This powered questionnaire-based recommendations that surfaced relevant, timely information tailored to where someone was in their settlement journey.
2. Privacy-first design decisions
Many users, especially asylum seekers, were reluctant to share personal details. Through testing, we learned even anonymous profiles felt exposing. I designed around this by allowing users to skip questionnaires while still seeing default next steps, emphasizing data stayed on-phone, and adding clear data deletion options.
We also designed the app to be offline-first for low-connectivity situations.
3. Crowdsourcing service data
We partnered with BC211 to list over 4,000 services in the app. But after launch, many settlement organizations noticed their listings were outdated as they hadn’t updated their info with BC211 directly. We turned this into an opportunity by designing a "Suggest an update" feature that empowered users to improve data quality.
Using rapid prototyping tools like AppSheet, we quickly tested if crowdsourced service data updates could work, creating a lightweight way to invite user participation in maintaining accurate information.
4. Multilingual development
Launching in 8 languages required flexible layouts for varying text lengths and RTL support. I established design QA processes to prevent expensive re-translation, worked with the team to coordinate string freezes for translations, and regularly tested for layout breaks or content loss in right-to-left and long-text contexts.
An app that helps newcomers navigate life in Canada, in your language, based on your needs
Arrival Advisor in British Columbia released on iOS and Android in 2019 and the app expanded to Manitoba in 2021.
Recommended next steps
By taking a questionnaire, users receive recommendations on next steps for settling in Canada. For example, if they have children, the app suggests how to apply for Canada Child Benefit; if they are a refugee, how they qualify for refugee-specific health supports.
Find services
One place to find all the service providers that can help them accomplish their tasks. As services often change in availability and eligibility due to funding, users can also suggest updates to the service data to help others.
Multilingual and privacy-first
In English, French, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Tagalog, and Punjabi. Users’ profiles are only saved to their device and can be cleared. Offline-first, for users on-the-go or with no data plan.
Results
- 10K+ downloads as of 2021. Now 200K+ users as of 2025 as "Welcome to Canada" (rebrand)
- Partner-funded expansion to Manitoba (2 provinces) as of 2021, now exists in 5 provinces as of 2025
- Vancouver UX Awards UX for Good finalist 2019 and Google.org Impact Challenge Canada winner/grantee
- Featured in the news: CTV, Global News, CBC Radio Canada, and more
Learnings
What I'd do differently
I joined this project as a fledgling designer learning UX on the job. This project taught me to lead research, manage stakeholders, build processes, and even contribute to development, demanding versatility that accelerated my growth across the entire product lifecycle. Looking back, there are key things I'd approach differently:
- Challenge the solution space earlier: not default to “informational app” without deeper product-market fit exploration
- Understand real data and content limitations upfront: rather than design ideal flows assuming clean, complete datasets
- Study cultural design patterns across languages and regions more rigorously
- Lean on existing component libraries instead of branded/custom design system, especially when dev time is limited and user value is marginal
Navigating power in "community-centered" design
Well-intended advisory committees can still prioritize institutional voices over newcomer perspectives. Asking "Who holds influence over our product decisions?" helped surface where our processes replicated existing biases rather than centering marginalized voices of newcomers.
Designing beyond the interface
This experience taught me that civic tech design means understanding the broader system your product enters. The settlement sector's competitive funding discouraged collaboration, creating some of the service navigation barriers newcomers faced. Recognizing these dynamics allowed us to design thoughtfully while using our neutral position to foster collaboration and advocate for systemic improvements like funding model changes.
