Paytrugo

Project Context

Designing a workable solution

It is evident that e-commerce market has grown considerably worldwide over the past few years. The convenience of online ordering and payments has been an important factor for this growth. Also, it is expected that the growth will continue as more businesses move online. However, in Nigeria, e-commerce services is still impeded in a lot of ways. There are many micro businesses that provides onlines services but payment mediation for many has been smooth. Paytrugo intends to facilitate this expansion by simplifying the payment process for both buyers and sellers. By acting as a trusted intermediary, Paytrugo provide businesses and customers greater confidence in online transactions, ensure satisfaction, and enable continued e-commerce growth through secure and reliable alternate payment services.

Discovery

Making a difference in a difficult market

I was hesitant to take a project of this size while studying but it presented me an opportunity to make a difference in a struggling and difficult market. I have always wanted to be involved in fintech ecosystem of Nigeria and this was my shot. I have always found many platforms in the Nigerian fintech market difficult and cumbersome to use, and my experience isn't unique. Nothing is more evident of this than many customers and businesses becoming more reliant on the age-old cash on delivery payment method. Of course, this affects the scalability and efficiency of these businesses.

Design Objectives

The objective is to directly address the research insights on trust, and confidence. The questions focus on benchmarking against the existing payment options, quantifying improvements made to areas like dispute efficiency, determining if pricing and features add buyer/seller value where promised and measuring engagement growth. Successfully fulfilling the objectives would mean Paytrugo delivers substantial user and market impact based on the requirements.

The Landscape

No doubt that there are many myth and assumptions in every market and the ecommerce space in Nigeria isn't immune to this. Thus, we carried out an extensive research on existing platforms in the market featuring comparisons and of course, assessment of their strengths, weaknesses and market positioning. The key players were identified through industry reports, market studies and online articles. Further research into each companies noting their offerings, and value propositions was also done which is presented in the product comparison table below. The comparison covered aspects such as mobile money integration, APIs integration, fraud score, customer support and pricing. From this, potential areas where competitors fell short is identified.

Identifying Painpoints

For us to better understand the challenges faced by the two main stakeholders (buyers and sellers), an extensive research is done. We targeted online buyers for our first research step mostly through social media platforms. We carried out a mixed method data collection which included a survey is to collect quantitative data on satisfaction levels, pain points and preference so as to back up assumptions or correct any wrong one. From the survey, 80% of respondents stated concerns about security of online payment, 75% of them preferred cash on delivery with all stating fraud as the reason, 40% have been defrauded online, and 60% would embrace online payments if refunds and chargebacks are handled by a trusted third party.

In addition to the quantitative data from customers, an interview with select ecommerce businesses and online buyers in the market is carried out. The key theme identified are user experience, business support and secure transactions.

Hypotheses

While our research gave us many useful insights, we needed to clarify our core hypothesis to nail the design process. So we took a step back and deeply analysed our approach so far. The main thing was digging into the specific user and business problems we were trying to solve - we wanted to define that root problem precisely. But we also looked at all the constraints and potential roadblocks. Like where does this problem get even worse for people? What happens if we don't solve it well? We mapped it all out on a Lean UX Canvas - this was the perfect tool for me. It let every one of us pour our findings into one master artefact that the whole team could keep circling back to.With all that laid out, we had a solid foundation to build our hypotheses on. We brainstormed different ways to frame the core problem statements, mixing and remixing ideas from across the team. These hypotheses were critical for testing our assumptions. For every user pain point, unanswered question, or design decision, we crafted a hypothesis around how it could solve a customer problem. We tried to cover all our bases that way.

Empthy Map

We created an empathy map focusing on two main personas: online shoppers and e-commerce merchants. Through user research methods like surveys and interviews, we gathered insights into their feelings, and pain points related to online payments.For online shoppers, frustrations emerged around frustrating refund policies and limit to buying options as some business do not offer payment on delivery. Businesses struggled with managing disputes, and efficiency in payment collection as many buyer prefer payment on delivery.Mapping these insights onto the empathy map allowed us to visualise the overlapping and unique challenges faced by each persona.

Mindmap

To organize the insights and ideas emerging from our research and ideation sessions, I employed mind-mapping as a visual thinking tool. This tool allowed us to break down problems into manageable components and explore interconnected concepts. At the center of our mind-map, the core objective was creating a user-friendly and secure payment mediation service. From the central node were branches representing various aspects of the solution. The challenges to address branch featured key issues that we considered as the the most vital to solve user problems, it indicates that speed in settlement either in dispute or payment will be key for user adoption.

Features Mapping

I visualized and mapped out features to be in the business accounts and other account types on the payment mediation service. By highlighting this, it serves as reference point for us a team iterate and reiterate on the minimum viable product that we are offering from the outset. I engaged other stakeholders to meticulously outline the entire system and have a common ground on the final output. These collaborative sessions served it's purpose in defining the delivery and expectations.

Wireframes

Creating the wireframes played a crucial role in the initial design phase. Outlining the potential layout of each screen and flow allowed me to quickly ideate and iterate on the core user flows, layout hierarchy. I started the process after series of meetings where we mapped out essential screens and potential pathways a for users to navigate. I started with the payment flow for buyers and accounted for edge cases such as failed transactions and scenarios where additional information might be needed. For merchants, I designed wireframes for administrative dashboards, transaction monitoring, and reconciliation system. My key focus on the dashboards was to ensure logical information hierarchy to ensure ease of use. I ensured that the feedback from the preliminary user research and personas are incorporated, so that specific needs and pain points of each stakeholder group are addressed.

Low-Fidelity Prototypes

Building upon the initial wireframes done, I then designed low-fidelity prototypes to simulate the core functionality and user flows. These prototypes helped to further test and validate with a broader range of stakeholders. I organised and championed a single single session where other members of the team are encouraged to interact with the prototypes as they would with a live system. This allowed me to note their reactions, and pain points in real time. I noted down areas where the participants encountered difficulties or expressed frustrations and used the insights to iteratively improve the design and address those pain points.

Design

Establishing a fresh, dynamic and scalable design system

UI Designs

Designing for efficiency and simplicity

After multiple rounds of iteration, testing, and refinement, we arrived at a final design that reflected the needs and preferences of our target users. The final solution incorporated a seamless and intuitive user interface, support for a wide range of payment methods and currencies, robust security measures like KYC, and streamlined integration with existing e-commerce platforms and payment gateways.Throughout the process, we remained committed to our user-centric approach, ensuring that every design decision was grounded in empirical data and real-world feedback. The final outcomes not only met the functional requirements but also delighted the stakeholders.