SPLITEASE - PAYMENT SPLIT EXPERIENCE
Designed for clarity. Built for trust. Shaped around how Nigerians actually share money.
1 Week
SplitEase is a fintech mobile experience designed to simplify how Nigerians manage shared expenses with friends, roommates, and groups.
The product focuses on reducing the emotional friction that comes with asking people to pay back money. Instead of relying on WhatsApp chats, screenshots, and awkward reminders, SplitEase creates a clearer and more human way to track shared payments, send reminders, and settle expenses using flexible payment methods including bank transfer and USSD.
The experience was designed mobile-first with a strong focus on trust, clarity, and culturally familiar payment behaviour.
Key Features/Product Experience
Human-Centred Payment Reminders
One of the biggest behavioural insights during the design process was that users disliked asking people for money back, not because of the money itself, but because of how uncomfortable the interaction felt.
Instead of designing reminders that felt transactional or aggressive, SplitEase approaches reminders conversationally. The reminder system includes the participant’s name, the expense context, the exact amount owed, and a direct payment action — all written in a softer, friendlier tone that reduces emotional friction.
Flexible Payment Methods Including USSD
Many Nigerian users still rely heavily on USSD and direct bank transfers due to unstable internet access, banking habits, or device limitations.
Rather than treating USSD as a secondary option, SplitEase integrates it directly into the payment flow with a dedicated payment experience, clear instructions, copyable codes, and payment confirmation guidance.
This allows the product to feel accessible to a wider range of users and payment behaviours.
Real-Time Split Tracking
The organiser can instantly see who has paid, who is pending, and who may need a reminder without relying on memory or separate conversations.
Payment progress is visualised clearly using progress indicators and status labels, helping users understand the state of the split at a glance.
Support for Offline Payments
Shared expenses in Nigeria do not always happen digitally. Many people settle debts through cash or external transfers outside the app.
To support this behaviour, SplitEase includes a Record Payment feature that allows organisers to manually update payment status when someone settles offline.
This prevents the experience from becoming disconnected from real-world behaviour.
Design Decisions
A major design priority throughout the project was reducing cognitive and emotional friction.
The split creation flow was intentionally broken into three focused steps instead of one long form to reduce drop-off and improve clarity on mobile devices.
Another important decision was making payment progress highly visible throughout the experience. Inspired partly by communal savings systems like Ajo and Esusu, the product uses progress indicators to create a sense of accountability and momentum as participants complete payments.
The reminder experience was also deliberately softened in tone. Rather than sounding like a debt collection tool, the language was designed to feel supportive and conversational to better match real social dynamics between friends and groups.
Full Case Study Section
Full UX Case Study
For a deeper look into the product thinking, user flow, edge cases, design system, and prototype exploration, view the complete case study presentation below.