Auctave Mobile App: A High-Trust, Real-Time Bidding Platform
Designing the entire V1 mobile app and security workflows for a new Nigerian-focused marketplace startup.
Designing the entire V1 mobile app and security workflows for a new Nigerian-focused marketplace startup.
Auctave is a new Nigerian marketplace where success depends entirely on building user trust in a transactional environment. The high-stakes challenge was designing seamless, secure financial and bidding flows from scratch to ensure fairness and prevent default, which is critical for growth and user adoption.
How might we design intuitive, secure bidding, payment, and delivery confirmation flows to maximize user confidence and ensure every transaction successfully completes?
I created a clean, minimal, and highly secure mobile application, focusing on elegant solutions for complex financial flows like escrow, bid commitment, and item hand-off to drive user certainty and product growth.
2024
2 weeks
Product Designer,
UX/Growth Strategist
Figma
This was a greenfield build for a startup, requiring the design of the entire V1 mobile app from initial concept to high-fidelity prototype. This provided the opportunity to architect the information structure and user flows entirely around security and transaction completion.
I started this project as the sole designer, tasked with defining the entire product vision and design strategy. I led the strategy to gamify the bidding view to drive engagement. Crucially, I designed the Escrow and Bid Commitment flows to reduce user hesitation, collaborating closely with the developer on feasibility.
1. Financial Flow Mapping: I personally mapped the multi-step bidding, payment, and item hand-off processes, ensuring every step was designed to safeguard both buyer and seller interests.
2. Security Mechanisms: I designed the core security features i.e the Bid Commitment Fee, Delivery Confirmation method, and the buyer dispute window to protect all parties.
3. Engagement Design: I implemented real-time status indicators to simplify the entire bidding flow and boost user retention.
The final design is a secure, V1 marketplace built for transaction success and user engagement.
1. Enhanced Bidding UX: Gamified real-time states (emojis, status indicators) to simplify the bidding environment and drive user interaction.
2. Comprehensive Safeguards: Transparent flows for the Wallet, Escrow, and Bid Commitment Fee, designed to ensure sellers are compensated for defaults and buyers receive the quality item they paid for.
3. Secure Item Hand-off: The design incorporates the delivery pin/confirmation and buyer dispute window process, ensuring payments are protected until confirmed delivery.
This project is highly relevant to startups and SaaS as it demonstrates the ability to translate complex financial logic into a secure, functional, and user-friendly digital product.
1. Projected Outcome: The escrow and bid commitment flows aim to keep payment default below 20%, maximizing seller confidence. The gamified bidding view is designed to boost user engagement and session frequency.
2. Relevance: This work proves my ability to design high-stakes financial platforms, balancing engagement with efficient security protocols.
3. What I Learned: I learned the foundational principles of designing payment systems, necessitating deep research & discussions with E Jay (the developer) to ensure the wallet feature and escrow system were feasible.
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