My Role
I am the designer for this project. I came up with the concept, created wireframes, supported research, created the designs and prototypes.
Project
BitPesa is a bitcoin exchange platform in Africa and was one of early platforms in the market. Because the company is growing, and cryptocurrency as well in Africa, BitPesa needs to realign their products to keep up with the demands. This had led to this project that I worked on.
After the registration redesign got scratched up, I received a new project where we need to create a new product that targets specifically large-volume traders. It was supposed to be a trading platform to leave out personal users. This project was labeled rush and needed to be implemented soon. After a month or so, the project completely changed direction and became a redesign of the current platform.
Process
To accommodate the deadline, I started creating wireframes while studying some existing websites. We have quickly planned the process and almost skipped it, going right away in designing the prototype. This was a very wrong practice that it led to some implications later on in the project.
I designed the new platform retaining the features from the current one and adding new ones, improving some UX flows present then. This was an unforeseen large-scale project with only me working on the design. We later hired a Project Manager for this project to help the messy process get organised.
Problem
The problem is still the same as with the previous project, although on this one, the scope became bigger and more features are need to be added.
Research
Trading is a new industry for me to get involved with. I wasn't really familiar with the financial terms and what-nots. I needed to understand the people who I am designing for, so before I head out to interview some traders, I familiarised myself with the trading flow especially for cryptocurrencies.
Joining the Customer Service Team
In order for me to know more about the customers, I joined the CS Team for a week to talk directly to our users. This experience opened me more closer to the issues that BitPesa were currently having. Using Intercom, I sent a mass message asking for their feedback. BitPesa has a thousand of users daily, and even so, I'm still surprised with the amount of feedback I received. The feedback I received were really helpful in defining the features for the re-designed platform.
Also, I reached out to the Customer Service team who knows our customers well to invite 5 regular traders for an interview. I prepared some questions to inquire about their opinion on BitPesa and its experience in trading. And from the interview results, I created personas to help me define the design.
Design
For the Registration and Onboarding, I kept the same flow I created previously. This eased the process a little bit as I only have to work on the visual.
This was the first phase of the project before it turned into a complete redesign and rebranding of BitPesa. This was meant to be the wireframe of the trading platform we're about to create.
Below are some of the designs I did for this project. This was a large-scale project that needed an meticulous eye for detail. The prototype has more than 100 screens, I created every design for every state, for every currency pair possible.
Dashboard
This is how the dashboard looks like after the a newly registered user has just confirmed his email and logged in.
And this is the re-designed dashboard with a bunch of new features. While deciding on these features to add, we had a constant communication between different teams within BitPesa and traders to make sure we give them what they need.
Rates updated realtime
One of the pains for the traders is that they have to email the Trading team to request for a quote, even for small transactions. Bitcoin's rate changes every minute so every second is important for the trader. Usually, getting a quote would take a day and the rate might be already so much different from the time the trader sent the request.
Slimmer navigation
The navigation menu is now sleek and slim, and doesn't overtake the dashboard page, so users can focus on the content they need in it.
Important Tasks
Bitcoin transactions must expire quickly because its rates change fast. I added this part specifically to inform users that they need to complete their pending transactions soon.
Register Form
And this is how the Register page looked like.
Just like in the previous project, the fields are aligned in 1 column, so the the flow on how the user will browse the form is on one direction. In addition to automated validation, we added a checklist on the password to serve as a guide on how to input a proper password. These checklist items change into the accent colour if valid.
New Transaction
This was the most crucial part of the project and the one that needed attention to detail. There is a different flow for every currency paired chosen, for when the user trades with more than 5000USD, and the like.
This is a demo flow of creating a transaction flow for buying BTC with USD, with one beneficiary.
One of the key feature of this new flow is the ability to select and add a new recipient seamlessly. I created this flow from the view of the user who would need to enter his beneficiary's details every time he creates a transaction. This flow solves that problem. The user can click the "Add a Beneficiary" link and the screen will go that page inline within the box.
Evaluation
To get feedback and to know if we're answering to the needs of our users, we invited our top traders again to review the flow. We presented the initial prototype to them and their responses were good. The interview happened in Skype 1 on 1, and although the sessions were recorded, they are only for private documentation within the company.
Reflections
Being in this project taught me a huge lesson: never skip the preparation part. Because this project was rushed and had a lot of changes before the final product was realised, it had a lot of back and forth during its development stage. If we had a concrete and finalise planning from the start, this project could've delivered smoothly.
Working in this project, I felt the huge responsibility to make a positive impact to the world. Seeing how active and growing BitPesa is in Africa, I can't wait for this project to get released in the public!
I didn't want this project to end even with the challenges I experienced in working on this. Yet, I feel humbly proud that I've worked on something that changes lives. Many of our clients run a non-profit organisation and lending services to improve the lives of the Africans, and now they have a much better platform coming to them so they can send and receive money better.
