Via Verde
Via Verde is Portugal’s leading electronic toll and mobility payment system. Created to enable automatic toll payments, it has evolved into a broader mobility partner. The company now offers integrated payment solutions for tolls, parking, fuel, ferries, and other services through a single app and account.
Challenge
Via Verde, traditionally associated with toll payments and parking, faced the challenge of evolving into something more meaningful to its users — a true mobility partner, present across every mode of transport and every type of journey.
With users increasingly expecting products that reflect their values as much as their needs, aligning the app with modern sustainability demands became a critical step.
Outcome
We evaluated current products, identified patterns, listed opportunities, and designed a prototype that translated these needs. Then we re-tested, refined, and adjusted.
This is the result of that process: a seamless experience that simplifies urban and interurban travel by integrating payments, route planning, and complementary services.
Via Verde and its newly launched app found themselves in a crucial period of transformation, evolving from a platform primarily aimed at urban car users to an inclusive app with national relevance and global aspirations.
Our role and goal
Via Verde had the ambition to become a true mobility partner — but to get there, it needed to first understand how users really saw it. The challenge was to uncover honest perceptions of the app and services, and turn those insights into a strategic vision capable of guiding the product’s future.
The vision, built from user research, competitive analysis, and our responsible design framework, was prototyped to illustrate and validate the path with users.
Urban mobility is undergoing a fundamental shift. The way people move — across cities, between transport modes, and through their daily routines — is becoming more fragmented and more interconnected at the same time. Shared mobility, electric vehicles, public transport integration, and real-time data have expanded what a mobility platform can be. But they’ve also raised the bar for what users expect: seamless, personalised, and increasingly, responsible.
Via Verde had built something rare — decades of trust with millions of users, and a product that had already grown far beyond its origins as a toll payment system. The challenge was not starting from scratch, but directing that momentum. With a newly launched app and a rapidly evolving market, the company needed more than incremental improvements. It needed a clear vision of what integrated mobility could look like by 2035, and a design strategy capable of delivering it.
We synthesized that vision by combining user research, competitive analysis, and our own responsible design framework — aligning the product’s direction with Via Verde’s ambitions as both a mobility leader and a sustainability-committed brand. To support this, we conducted a thorough UX and sustainability audit, identifying where the current experience fell short and where the greatest opportunities lay. Users were engaged throughout the process, from early interviews to usability testing, ensuring the vision was grounded in real behaviour and not just strategic intent. Our goal was to help Via Verde make the leap from a trusted payment platform to a pioneer in smart, integrated mobility — setting a new standard for what this category of product can and should be.
Research
Users weren't overwhelmed by the number of features. They were overwhelmed by the effort required to reach the ones they actually needed.
Usability Research
We started by listening to users. Through quick interviews and in-depth conversations, we mapped how users moved through the app: what they were trying to do, where they got stuck, and what they quietly gave up on. Lo-fi prototypes were tested early in the process, allowing us to surface assumptions and discard them quickly. We also ran immersive experiences and co-creation workshops to bring different perspectives into the room, and grounded everything in a thorough review of market trends and competitive references.
One pattern came through consistently: users weren’t overwhelmed by the number of features. They were overwhelmed by the effort required to reach the ones they actually needed. The mental load of navigating the app was higher than it should be, and that friction was quietly pushing people toward simpler, less capable alternatives.
:t-rex: — a product assessment tool that goes beyond user experience and interface design
Alongside User Research, we put the app through :t-rex:, our product assessment tool. For this project, we focused on the axis of Sustainable Design, examined through three lenses: Simplicity & Efficiency, Conscious Product Journey, and Climate Intersectionalism.
We evaluated the app across 36 parameters — analysing over 100 screens — and scored each axis against clear, measurable criteria. The results were instructive.
Simplicity & Efficiency came in at 73%, reflecting a solid foundation in areas like font economy, colour efficiency, and the absence of video bloat. But Conscious Product Journey and Climate Intersectionalism both scored 50%, pointing to two more significant gaps: the lack of a coherent strategy connecting the app’s many features into a unified experience, and a product logic that still skewed toward urban car owners despite the brand’s ambitions to serve a much wider audience.
Results
The prototype was built to make the strategic vision tangible — translating recommendations into something you can see, click through, and react to. We simplified navigation flows, introduced intent-driven interfaces that surface the right services at the right moment, and restructured key journeys to reduce the effort required to complete everyday tasks. Rather than a set of abstract principles, the prototype gives stakeholders a concrete reference point: a shared picture of what the product can become and the direction all subsequent decisions should move toward.
The journey toward becoming a truly integrated mobility platform is ongoing, but the foundation is now in place. Via Verde enters its next chapter with a clear vision, a responsible design framework to guide its decisions, and a product that is beginning to reflect what the brand has always stood for. By 2035, the goal is a mobility ecosystem that helps shape how people move through the world.
