Designing a Buy Now Pay Later Fintech App for a Y Combinator batch startup
Industry
fintech
Duration
3 months
Services
UX/UI Design
Devices
Mobile (iOS & Android)
A lending app with Glassmorphism UI.
The client discovered us through Upwork – a projects platform where all our designers maintain 100% project success rate. We were assigned a pilot job of creating ux based on a FinTech concept. Given our extensive experience in designing a diverse set of FinTech apps, we presented multiple versions of the concept. And, this got us the main job.
The main job was to be a design partner in their product building process. We were tasked with optimising the existing fintech UX of their Singapore focused app, design new features and modify the user flows as per the regulatory norms. We also redesigned the app modelled for another Southeast Asian country.
About client
Octifi is a Y Combinator 2021 batch FinTech startup operating out of Singapore. They empower commerce in the Southeast Asian market with instant 0% interest loans for the responsible spenders. Many of the Southeast Asian countries have very low credit card penetration and Octifi aims to present an easy alternative to the credit cards. With a strong focus on security, detecting genuine buyers, genuine sellers and genuine devices, the client was looking for a UX/UI designer with deep knowledge of FinTech, especially the micro lending domain.
Challenge
The biggest challenge for us was to integrate a UX and UI design process into a typical growth-stage startup culture – agile, rapidly changing and engineering-centered. Thankfully, we had a very good point of contact who helped us navigate through the structure and guided us whenever we needed.
At the product level, we were presented with many challenging problems that we loved solving. We spent a good amount of time optimising the user onboarding, made the loan issuance process more efficient for the users, and introduced Neumorphism visual style to their fintech app design.
Fintech design process
Methodology
High fidelity prototyping for early validation
Incentivise the high credit worthiness
Rapid iterations through low fidelity wireframing
Stakeholder interactions for market, product and user insights
Design Objectives
Design for millennials
Incentivise the high credit worthiness
Lending process should be easy and playful
Promote purchase behaviour through lending
Glassmorphism UI Style
We developed a Glassmorphism based design system including design components, typography, colors and fonts that were in line with the client’s brand identity.
Since Glassmorphism is relatively new in (as in August 2021) UI style, here is a brief understanding on what it is. Like most concepts in design, there is no standard definition of what is Glassmorphism. Our interpretation of Glassmorphism is a UI style with that creates a visual effect of seeing through a glass, most commonly a frosted glass effect. It using vivid colors, semi-transparent backgrounds, multiple layers and floating objects.
Being a FinTech design agency, it was important for us to make sure that the designs generated a sense of trust, security and ease.
Rapid Low Fidelity iterations
A rapid wireframing approach was adopted to ensure nothing was lost in translation while communicating with the client. We spent a lot of time in getting the information architecture right, which was made possible through multiple interactions with the product owner, written communication to explain our understanding and low-fidelity iterations.
For each concept, we presented multiple user flows and design options.
High fidelity prototypes
High fidelity mockups allowed the product team, especially the engineering and marketing teams to validate the designs. We were able to avoid bigger investments in terms of coding the interfaces due to the pixel-perfect high fidelity prototypes built using the real data.
Final Outcome
The engineering team was able to fix a lot of usability problems in the very first month of our association.
An iterative design approach reduced the cost of coding the product.
A new UI style – Glassmorphism – was implemented for the launch in the new market.
Octifi
"The Tcules team is clearly brilliant in UX/UI works. They are intuitive, empirical and are very effective communicators. These characteristics they possess has made it a clear joy to work with them. They deliver the works required on time. They deliberate sufficiently and outline clear thought processes in the flows. And they are also proactive in exploring an intuitive and aesthetically designed output. Highly recommended. Would love to work with them in the future."
Fintech is one of the fastest-growing industries today. Here is a blog elaborating on things you should take into consideration when designing for fintech.