Kyshi 2.0 — A User Experience Design Case Study
The Challenge
In 2019, there were over $48 billion sub-Saharan remittance transactions. Yet, the system of sending money to and within Africa is inconvenient, lengthy, and most expensive. As such, many resorts to sending money to their family and friends through unsafe informal means. Furthermore, the FX market is unable to fulfill the market demand.
The Solution
Kyshi is a marketplace for fair and transparent currency exchange; a simple peer-to-peer money transfer platform designed to make sending money to and from Africa easier, safer, and more affordable.
Getting Started…
Client Meetings
To begin, we had several conversations with Kyshi. We believe that asking the right questions is a key step to getting a better end-product. The project roadmap, timelines, and SMART objectives were discussed to ensure that our team and that of Kyshi’s were aligned on expectations.
With the knowledge that Africans are communal, it was important that the app facilitated peer-to-peer transactions without the interference of larger corporations in how money moves across borders. This informed some critical features and functionalities for the UI design process.
User Stories
After fully understanding the scope of the project, we proceeded to map out all the feature requirements of the app and how they are interconnected for easy use. Although the product is powered by intricate back-end engineering, it was important to us that the front end remained simple, interactive, and fluid while catering to the user's needs.
We looked at how the various stakeholders would be interacting with the app with respect to the various feature sets. With each feature, we evaluated how each user would transition through their first step all the way to the desired final action in the fewest steps possible.
Wireframes
The wireframing process focused on how screen interfaces would be laid out and connected for seamless navigation and functioning of the product. This stage was very necessary to access whether the Kyshi team and ours were on the same page. We were also able to make several adjustments that brought about smoother, time-saving transitions to elevate the app's user experience.
Mobile UI Design
Achieving an exceptional mobile UI design was the principal aim of the project. It was important that we kept the page layout readable and intuitive to meet the needs of the different user personas. The UI design was influenced by the knowledge we had gathered from wireframing. Some key factors that were of utmost importance included the age range of users and how this affected technology adaptation. Our aim was to ensure that a wide range of users could use the app easily.
