Sharpsend: Lessons Learned
What I learned when I designed and managed the Sharpsend app project.
Sharpsend provides a modern solution to making payments with your mobile phone by leveraging existing USSD solutions to improve the user experience while making transactions without requiring the internet.
Features
- Transfer Funds
To transfer money on Sharpsend, you will do the following;
- Select your bank.
- Select the recipient bank.
- Input the recipient's account number.
- Enter the amount you want to send and click ‘’Send’’.
2. Buy Airtime
To buy airtime on Sharpsend, you will do the following;
- Select your bank.
- Choose whether you want to buy airtime for yourself or 3rd party (another person).
- Enter the airtime amount you want to send and click ‘’Done’’.
3. Buy Data & Check Airtime
To check airtime on Sharpsend, click on the check airtime quick action, and it will automatically display your airtime balance based on the mobile phone number registered with your bank account.
The same processes for buying airtime will redirect you to the USSD interface.
You can download the app from the Google Play Store.
My Role
Product Design and Product Management
Fouad Olaore — Android Developer
Seyi Ipaye — Android Developer
Ajibola Akelebe — Brand Designer
How It Started
Sharpsend started as a Hackathon project hosted by Hover (Giza Hackathon), and was invited to join the team as a product designer. We kick-started the Hackathon with a team of 3 (three): me as the product designer, Fouad Olaore as the Android developer and Seyi Ipaye as the Android developer.
The initial version of sharpsend was designed within a few days of the hackathon. Most of the time was spent on product research to see and understand how certain features and functionalities, like bill payments, funds transfer, etc, work on other platforms.
After completing the UI design, I sent the Figma link to the development team to start building it.
At the end of the hackathon, we didn’t win, but that didn’t get to us because the amount of work that was done motivated the entire team. Although we were given some tokens for pizza and drinks during the hackathon, we appreciate the Hover team for doing that.
Moving Forward
After the result from the Hover hackathon, I discussed with the Sharpsend team to let us continue the project to push it to production. We agreed on that and decided to onboard Ajibola Akelebe on the team to handle the logo design and other brand materials as we aim to publish the app publicly.
Issues Faced
We faced many issues that weren’t clear before, making us rethink the app. One of the issues was an error we got from the Hover SDK we planned to use.
The initial plan was to create an abstraction over the existing USSD processes where Hover can handle the transactions offline so that users won’t have to interact with any USSD interface but can perform all the transactions within the Sharpsend app without requiring an internet connection. (That doesn’t work for us. 😒)
We end up going with a flow where users will select the type of transactions, enter a phone number and amount, select bank on Sharpsend, and redirect the user to the USSD interface with the predefined data the user inputs on Sharpsend to perform those transactions. This led to the V2 UI Design of Sharpsend.
Hover SDK came in handy for sim selection due to devices with dual sim support. It enables users to switch from their default sim to another to perform their desired transactions. So, in simple terms, Hover saved us with that 😉
We also have issues internally within the team where one of the Android developers said he won’t be able to continue on the project anymore. It hurts everyone because of the timing, but we appreciated his contributions to the project's development.
Conclusion
The project was exciting, and I learned a lot while designing the app. I did product research in the B2C fintech space and conducted user interviews and testing with some fantastic people who volunteered to help test and improve the app (A special shoutout to them 🙌).
I was able to utilize the skills I learned from product management courses I took in Product School. It was an interesting journey!!! 😌
View the project at — https://sharpsend.co
