InPost Maps — redesigning for international users

When InPost expanded beyond Poland, the map feature that local users barely needed became critical — and it wasn't ready.

Context

InPost operates one of Europe's largest parcel locker networks, with self-service lockers as its core differentiator. In Poland, these lockers are ubiquitous and users are deeply familiar with them — but as InPost expanded into new markets, that familiarity couldn't be assumed.

Map rank in Polish app

Low usage

Map rank in French app

#3 feature

Key gap

Hidden data

Local marketing teams across new markets flagged a consistent pattern: users frequently couldn't find parcel points, even when they were nearby. The API already contained richer location data — descriptions and photos — but only the description was surfaced in the Polish app, where it had never been needed.

Problem

💡 The information users needed already existed. It just wasn't visible.

As the app expanded to new markets, this hidden API data became essential. The gap wasn't in what the system knew — it was in what the UI chose to show. International users couldn't confidently identify whether a point on the map was accessible, open, or even the right location.

Approach

Without the ability to run live user interviews for this phase, the work was grounded in three sources:

Stakeholder input — local marketing teams in new markets flagged that users struggled to find points, providing qualitative signal that the Polish app wasn't meeting international needs

Multi-market survey — coordinated a survey across 5 European markets to surface what information users needed most when locating a parcel point, providing quantitative signal to prioritise which API data fields to expose first

API audit — reviewed what data was available in the API versus what the UI exposed, which revealed the gap directly

Competitive analysis — reviewed how comparable apps in courier, logistics, and map-native products surface location detail to build confidence for unfamiliar users

Design decisions

Surface more from the API

Mapped what the API returned against what users needed to feel confident — address detail, opening hours, descriptions, photos — and redesigned the location detail sheet to expose the most decision-critical fields and added additional information in the details.

Opening hours surfaced more clearly

Colour coded opening hours to accommodate delivery points that are not 24/7.

Design for language-agnostic clarity

Leaned on iconography and structured data layouts that communicate clearly regardless of the user's language — reducing dependency on copy that may feel unfamiliar to non-native speakers.

User flow

Full map experience flow — from entry point to location detail.

Reflection

This project reinforced that data completeness is a design problem, not just an engineering one. A richer API is only as useful as the UI layer that chooses what to show. Designing for users who don't share local context — geographic, linguistic, or cultural — requires treating information architecture as the primary UX lever.