Overview
WalletWise v1 had a real problem: users were dropping off mid-transfer because the flow felt confusing and the interface overwhelming. As the lead product designer on v2, I redesigned the entire experience from the ground up — rethinking the visual language, simplifying core flows, and aligning the product with how users actually think about sending money. The result: ₦1 billion in transactions processed within months of launch.
The Challenge
WalletWise v1 had solid fundamentals — money transfers, bill payments, a referral system — but the experience felt rough around the edges. The visual design was overwhelming, the transfer flow was unintuitive, and users weren't completing key journeys. My goal for v2 was to modernise the visual identity, reduce cognitive load, and rebuild the transfer flow around users' existing mental models.
Research insights
Following the initial release of the app, several rounds of focus group sessions and dogfooding were conducted to evaluate the overall design and user experience. Three significant issues emerged:
Cognitive Overload on the Home Screen: The primary brand color was used so aggressively across the home screen that users reported feeling visually overwhelmed. Several described it as 'too loud' and 'hard to focus on what matters.
Transfer Flow Mismatch: Users expected the sending flow to follow a step-by-step model (who → how much → confirm), similar to apps like Cash App or PayPal. WalletWise v1 deviated from this, causing hesitation and errors at the confirmation stage."
Old designs
The v1 interface overused the brand purple across backgrounds, cards, buttons, and icons, flattening visual hierarchy and reducing clarity. When everything is emphasized, nothing stands out. In fintech, where trust and speed matter, this creates a sense of overwhelm.
The send flow also deviated from the familiar step-by-step pattern (who → amount → confirm) common in modern fintech apps, leading to hesitation and more confirmation errors. Additionally, the oversized icons added visual weight without improving clarity or polish.
Proposed solutions
Overall visual system overhaul: The UI was rebuilt around a structured design system — introducing a defined type scale, a restrained colour application strategy that reserved the brand green exclusively for primary CTAs and key indicators, and consistent spacing tokens across all screens. This shift from ad-hoc styling to systematic design decisions reduced visual clutter and created a predictable, scannable interface that users could navigate with less conscious effort.
Streamlined transaction architecture: The sending flow was re-engineered to mirror established fintech interaction patterns — one decision per screen, progressive disclosure of information, and a logical sequence of who → how much → review → confirm. By aligning the flow with users' existing mental models we eliminated unnecessary cognitive load at the most trust-critical moment in the experience.
Refined iconography and micro-interactions: Icons across the app were redrawn with a consistent stroke weight, optical sizing, and a unified visual style that felt purposeful rather than decorative. Beyond consistency, carefully placed micro-interactions — subtle state changes on tap, animated feedback on successful transfers — added a layer of delight that made the app feel responsive and alive. In a fintech product, where interactions often carry real financial weight, this kind of polish signals reliability and builds user confidence.
Sign up flow for new designs
The redesigned onboarding flow was built around a single guiding principle: one screen, one task. Rather than overwhelming new users with a multi-field form upfront, each step was broken into its own focused screen — personal details, email verification, PIN creation, avatar selection, and member tag setup — presented in a logical sequence that mirrors how users naturally think about setting up a financial account. Every screen was stripped of unnecessary elements so users knew exactly what was being asked of them and why.
The flow concludes with BVN verification, placed deliberately at the end once the user has already invested in the setup process and established a sense of trust with the product — reducing drop-off at what is typically the highest friction point in any fintech onboarding experience.
Other high fidelity screens
WalletWise transfer
By using clear interfaces and dedicating one function per page, we streamlined the transfer process. This includes selecting the contact to send to, entering the amount—which also displays your available balance—followed by a review page where you can verify all your information before proceeding to authorise the payment using your PIN or biometrics.
Selected screen improvement
Add Beneficiary:
In the first iteration of this design, the 'Add Beneficiary' and 'Beneficiary List' actions were presented as two equal-weight outlined buttons sitting side by side below the recent contacts row. While functional, this treatment introduced unnecessary visual competition — both buttons demanded the same level of attention, forcing users to pause and evaluate two options before completing a task they'd already started. The layout also broke the natural top-to-bottom flow of the form, inserting a decision point mid-screen where users expected to continue filling in details.
The redesign resolves this by eliminating the standalone buttons entirely and integrating both actions directly into the existing screen architecture. 'Add New' is now an avatar slot within the recent beneficiaries row — visually consistent with the other contacts, immediately scannable, and aligned with the mental model users already have from contacts apps, messaging platforms, and other payment apps like Cash App and PayPal. The 'Beneficiary List' is preserved as a subtle inline row at the bottom of the form, where it sits quietly for users who need it without distracting users who don't.
This change does three things simultaneously: it reduces the visual weight of secondary actions, it keeps the primary send flow uninterrupted, and it brings the interface in line with modern fintech UI conventions where utility actions are woven into the layout rather than surfaced as competing CTAs. The result is a screen that feels cleaner, faster to scan, and more confident — the kind of interface that builds trust without the user ever consciously noticing why.
Balance display
One of the quieter but more consequential issues in the v1 amount entry screen was the absence of the user's available balance. On a screen asking users to input how much they want to send, withholding that information created an unnecessary memory burden, users had to either recall their balance from memory or abandon the flow entirely, navigate back to the home screen to check, and then return to re-enter their details. In a payment app, that kind of interruption doesn't just create friction; it erodes confidence at exactly the moment when confidence matters most.
The v2 design addresses this with a single, well-placed addition: the account balance displayed in a subtle label directly beneath the amount being entered, paired with a visibility toggle for users who prefer privacy. This means the user has everything they need to make a confident sending decision on one screen ,the amount they're about to send, the balance they're sending from, and the ability to proceed without second-guessing themselves.
The change is small in terms of screen real estate but significant in terms of user experience. It eliminates a common drop-off trigger, reduces the cognitive overhead of the transaction, and signals that the product understands how users actually think about moving money. Knowing your balance isn't an afterthought — it's fundamental to the decision itself, and the design now reflects that.
Measured Results
Anticipated Outcomes (Based on Early Data)
Takeaways
The biggest lesson from this project was how much a single colour decision can affect user confidence — especially in fintech, where trust is everything. Scaling back the brand colour wasn't just a visual choice; it was a product decision that made the app feel more credible and less risky to users. I also learned to never underestimate how much users rely on mental models from competing apps. Aligning our transfer flow with what users already knew from other platforms removed friction we didn't even realise we'd introduced. If I were to revisit this, I'd push for even earlier prototype testing before committing to high-fidelity screens.