Brass banking
2022
Pay With Brass
skills
Product Strategy / Art Direction / Interaction Design / Product Design
my role
I led product and design at Brass in 2022, my primary focus was on building new products for the Brass brand around Commerce. I collaborated with Product (Tolu Saba, Princess Akari), Engineering and the founder (Sola) who was my Manager.
Brass banking
2022
Pay With Brass
skills
Product Strategy / Art Direction / Interaction Design / Product Design
my role
I led product and design at Brass in 2022, my primary focus was on building new products for the Brass brand around Commerce. I collaborated with Product (Tolu Saba, Princess Akari), Engineering and the founder (Sola) who was my Manager.
Brass banking
2022
Pay With Brass
skills
Product Strategy / Art Direction / Interaction Design / Product Design
my role
I led product and design at Brass in 2022, my primary focus was on building new products for the Brass brand around Commerce. I collaborated with Product (Tolu Saba, Princess Akari), Engineering and the founder (Sola) who was my Manager.
Business goals & context
Pay with Brass is a bundled-in feature for Brass commerce built in collaboration with the Brass Money team. Brass Money is the commercial banking arm of Brass bank with a focus on professionals. Pay with Brass allows customers who use a Brass money account to access advanced commerce / checkout features including
Advanced overdrafts with minimal interest rates.
Buy Now, Pay Later
Pay using a Brass Money Budget
Save Towards This: a feature that allows users to create a budget for any item in their Money accounts.
I collaborated extensively with the Brass Money Engineering and Product teams to scope out the feature, determine the risk involved with creating a deep integration between both products and how best to execute without significantly extending the workload for the Money Team.
Business goals & context
Pay with Brass is a bundled-in feature for Brass commerce built in collaboration with the Brass Money team. Brass Money is the commercial banking arm of Brass bank with a focus on professionals. Pay with Brass allows customers who use a Brass money account to access advanced commerce / checkout features including
Advanced overdrafts with minimal interest rates.
Buy Now, Pay Later
Pay using a Brass Money Budget
Save Towards This: a feature that allows users to create a budget for any item in their Money accounts.
I collaborated extensively with the Brass Money Engineering and Product teams to scope out the feature, determine the risk involved with creating a deep integration between both products and how best to execute without significantly extending the workload for the Money Team.
Business goals & context
Pay with Brass is a bundled-in feature for Brass commerce built in collaboration with the Brass Money team. Brass Money is the commercial banking arm of Brass bank with a focus on professionals. Pay with Brass allows customers who use a Brass money account to access advanced commerce / checkout features including
Advanced overdrafts with minimal interest rates.
Buy Now, Pay Later
Pay using a Brass Money Budget
Save Towards This: a feature that allows users to create a budget for any item in their Money accounts.
I collaborated extensively with the Brass Money Engineering and Product teams to scope out the feature, determine the risk involved with creating a deep integration between both products and how best to execute without significantly extending the workload for the Money Team.
Discovery and benchmarking
Entire startups are built around providing payments as a service, is this really an opportunity we want to pursue as a feature? At the time, BNPL was a relatively new concept for the Nigerian market and it did not make sense to proceed without first understanding WHY the market hadn't been flooded with products like AfterPay, Klarna and Zip. We had Qualitative and Quantitative data that showed that Internet Commerce space in Nigeria had grown ~15% YoY since 2010 with a spending trend for most people between the ages of 25 - 50 very similar to North American markets.
This was going to be a challenging feature to both design and manage across product, engineering and QA, I decided to use the Double Diamond method to guide my thought process. To kick off the discovery phase i focused creating a Competitor analysis on Payment products within the Nigerian / African market to gain a comprehensive understanding of how various apps uniquely address our business and users' needs in diverse settings. These apps include ShopPay by Shopify, Klarna and Affirm.
Get competitor analysis document
Click to go to Notion
Discovery and benchmarking
Entire startups are built around providing payments as a service, is this really an opportunity we want to pursue as a feature? At the time, BNPL was a relatively new concept for the Nigerian market and it did not make sense to proceed without first understanding WHY the market hadn't been flooded with products like AfterPay, Klarna and Zip. We had Qualitative and Quantitative data that showed that Internet Commerce space in Nigeria had grown ~15% YoY since 2010 with a spending trend for most people between the ages of 25 - 50 very similar to North American markets.
This was going to be a challenging feature to both design and manage across product, engineering and QA, I decided to use the Double Diamond method to guide my thought process. To kick off the discovery phase i focused creating a Competitor analysis on Payment products within the Nigerian / African market to gain a comprehensive understanding of how various apps uniquely address our business and users' needs in diverse settings. These apps include ShopPay by Shopify, Klarna and Affirm.
Get competitor analysis document
Click to go to Notion
Discovery and benchmarking
Entire startups are built around providing payments as a service, is this really an opportunity we want to pursue as a feature? At the time, BNPL was a relatively new concept for the Nigerian market and it did not make sense to proceed without first understanding WHY the market hadn't been flooded with products like AfterPay, Klarna and Zip. We had Qualitative and Quantitative data that showed that Internet Commerce space in Nigeria had grown ~15% YoY since 2010 with a spending trend for most people between the ages of 25 - 50 very similar to North American markets.
This was going to be a challenging feature to both design and manage across product, engineering and QA, I decided to use the Double Diamond method to guide my thought process. To kick off the discovery phase i focused creating a Competitor analysis on Payment products within the Nigerian / African market to gain a comprehensive understanding of how various apps uniquely address our business and users' needs in diverse settings. These apps include ShopPay by Shopify, Klarna and Affirm.
Get competitor analysis document
Click to go to Notion
The competitor analysis did not provide the information i assumed it would, while insightful, it did little to provide quality data to build solid experience choices on top of. But with a tight budget, it wasn't going to be possible to get quality candidates for user interviews so i had to be inventive. I had two solutions; I created a survey using Google's survey tool as well as collecting hundreds of screenshots from Trust Pilot, Google PlayStore and Reddit which I paired with responses from my survey to craft a detailed set of archetypes to guide my decision making for this specific feature.
Another one bites the dust!
Google killed surveys in December 2022
design strategy
What good is a payment product if it is too complex to understand especially for a new market? My focus for Pay with Brass (Brass Pay) was to create a lovable payment product that meet the following requirements:
Delight: Make it delightable for users. My theory is that for a payment product like this, we needed to give users their "AHA" moment very early.
Focus on goals: Make it simple and convenient to make online payments. No fluff, all cha-ching.
Functional and reliable UX paired God tier UI.
Provide information and 100% hand holding until we reach stickiness.
Designing the UI
One of my favourite design principles is Hick's Law and I decided to stick to it when creating the UI for the payment modal. With so much information on the screen, it will was important to avoid clustering the screen and making it difficult for a user to make their decision quickly, avoid the paradox of choice and churn.
I designed a bunch of low fidelity iterations to sort out the layout as well as create a UI hierarchy to guide how I sort and stack the payment canvas.
feedback and iterations
I got continuous feedback from the design and engineering team as well as working closely with an external designer to review and test the iterations we created. After about 5 week cycle of non-stop design, prototyping and feedback, we chose a solution that worked best across our benchmarks.
non-brass money customer experience
While Brass pay is a bundled experience with Brass Commerce, we designed it to be usable for non-Brass customers who were buying items at a Brass Commerce powered storefront. We create a basic "Happy Path" for them that allows them to manually enter their preferences across payment and delivery. I collaborated with the engineering team to create an experience that did not suck for these users.
brass money customer experience
We spent a lot of time creating the perfect experience for existing Brass Money customers. The experience is designed to have customers be done with paying for an item in less than 1 minute if they need to customise any of their preferences across payments or delivery. Using the BNPL feature however took a little over a minute to cycle through.
Pay with Bnpl
A Brass Money customer can in 2 clicks setup a pay later option for paying for an item on supported storefronts.
pay using a brass money budget
The product collaboration with Brass Money allows us to experiment with making payments without using the main Brass balance. This means users can create specific expense budgets which can be linked to their BrassPay experience. Once selected, the customer can select the budget they want to spend from in 2 clicks and then checkout.
pay with balance
Paying with a bank balance when checking out at a storefront is a new type of payment experience we experimented with. User pays directly with their bank balance without having to use a credit or debit card. Once a Brass Money account is connected, the bank account balance is selected and checkout is super quick.
pay with saved cards
Paying with cards is standard, Brass Money partners with payment infrastructure companies such as Paystack and Flutterwave to provide branded Debit cards which users can select at checkout.
additional features
In addition to the checkout features we designed, we experimented with the idea of decoupling the experience and making it a stand-alone product. We also designed a "save towards this" feature to allow users to create a budget inside their Brass Money account. Once the setup, the app is designed to use a set of instructions to contribute to the the budget.
The competitor analysis did not provide the information i assumed it would, while insightful, it did little to provide quality data to build solid experience choices on top of. But with a tight budget, it wasn't going to be possible to get quality candidates for user interviews so i had to be inventive. I had two solutions; I created a survey using Google's survey tool as well as collecting hundreds of screenshots from Trust Pilot, Google PlayStore and Reddit which I paired with responses from my survey to craft a detailed set of archetypes to guide my decision making for this specific feature.
Another one bites the dust!
Google killed surveys in December 2022
design strategy
What good is a payment product if it is too complex to understand especially for a new market? My focus for Pay with Brass (Brass Pay) was to create a lovable payment product that meet the following requirements:
Delight: Make it delightable for users. My theory is that for a payment product like this, we needed to give users their "AHA" moment very early.
Focus on goals: Make it simple and convenient to make online payments. No fluff, all cha-ching.
Functional and reliable UX paired God tier UI.
Provide information and 100% hand holding until we reach stickiness.
Designing the UI
One of my favourite design principles is Hick's Law and I decided to stick to it when creating the UI for the payment modal. With so much information on the screen, it will was important to avoid clustering the screen and making it difficult for a user to make their decision quickly, avoid the paradox of choice and churn.
I designed a bunch of low fidelity iterations to sort out the layout as well as create a UI hierarchy to guide how I sort and stack the payment canvas.
feedback and iterations
I got continuous feedback from the design and engineering team as well as working closely with an external designer to review and test the iterations we created. After about 5 week cycle of non-stop design, prototyping and feedback, we chose a solution that worked best across our benchmarks.
non-brass money customer experience
While Brass pay is a bundled experience with Brass Commerce, we designed it to be usable for non-Brass customers who were buying items at a Brass Commerce powered storefront. We create a basic "Happy Path" for them that allows them to manually enter their preferences across payment and delivery. I collaborated with the engineering team to create an experience that did not suck for these users.
brass money customer experience
We spent a lot of time creating the perfect experience for existing Brass Money customers. The experience is designed to have customers be done with paying for an item in less than 1 minute if they need to customise any of their preferences across payments or delivery. Using the BNPL feature however took a little over a minute to cycle through.
Pay with Bnpl
A Brass Money customer can in 2 clicks setup a pay later option for paying for an item on supported storefronts.
pay using a brass money budget
The product collaboration with Brass Money allows us to experiment with making payments without using the main Brass balance. This means users can create specific expense budgets which can be linked to their BrassPay experience. Once selected, the customer can select the budget they want to spend from in 2 clicks and then checkout.
pay with balance
Paying with a bank balance when checking out at a storefront is a new type of payment experience we experimented with. User pays directly with their bank balance without having to use a credit or debit card. Once a Brass Money account is connected, the bank account balance is selected and checkout is super quick.
pay with saved cards
Paying with cards is standard, Brass Money partners with payment infrastructure companies such as Paystack and Flutterwave to provide branded Debit cards which users can select at checkout.
additional features
In addition to the checkout features we designed, we experimented with the idea of decoupling the experience and making it a stand-alone product. We also designed a "save towards this" feature to allow users to create a budget inside their Brass Money account. Once the setup, the app is designed to use a set of instructions to contribute to the the budget.
The competitor analysis did not provide the information i assumed it would, while insightful, it did little to provide quality data to build solid experience choices on top of. But with a tight budget, it wasn't going to be possible to get quality candidates for user interviews so i had to be inventive. I had two solutions; I created a survey using Google's survey tool as well as collecting hundreds of screenshots from Trust Pilot, Google PlayStore and Reddit which I paired with responses from my survey to craft a detailed set of archetypes to guide my decision making for this specific feature.
Another one bites the dust!
Google killed surveys in December 2022
design strategy
What good is a payment product if it is too complex to understand especially for a new market? My focus for Pay with Brass (Brass Pay) was to create a lovable payment product that meet the following requirements:
Delight: Make it delightable for users. My theory is that for a payment product like this, we needed to give users their "AHA" moment very early.
Focus on goals: Make it simple and convenient to make online payments. No fluff, all cha-ching.
Functional and reliable UX paired God tier UI.
Provide information and 100% hand holding until we reach stickiness.
Designing the UI
One of my favourite design principles is Hick's Law and I decided to stick to it when creating the UI for the payment modal. With so much information on the screen, it will was important to avoid clustering the screen and making it difficult for a user to make their decision quickly, avoid the paradox of choice and churn.
I designed a bunch of low fidelity iterations to sort out the layout as well as create a UI hierarchy to guide how I sort and stack the payment canvas.
feedback and iterations
I got continuous feedback from the design and engineering team as well as working closely with an external designer to review and test the iterations we created. After about 5 week cycle of non-stop design, prototyping and feedback, we chose a solution that worked best across our benchmarks.
non-brass money customer experience
While Brass pay is a bundled experience with Brass Commerce, we designed it to be usable for non-Brass customers who were buying items at a Brass Commerce powered storefront. We create a basic "Happy Path" for them that allows them to manually enter their preferences across payment and delivery. I collaborated with the engineering team to create an experience that did not suck for these users.
brass money customer experience
We spent a lot of time creating the perfect experience for existing Brass Money customers. The experience is designed to have customers be done with paying for an item in less than 1 minute if they need to customise any of their preferences across payments or delivery. Using the BNPL feature however took a little over a minute to cycle through.
Pay with Bnpl
A Brass Money customer can in 2 clicks setup a pay later option for paying for an item on supported storefronts.
pay using a brass money budget
The product collaboration with Brass Money allows us to experiment with making payments without using the main Brass balance. This means users can create specific expense budgets which can be linked to their BrassPay experience. Once selected, the customer can select the budget they want to spend from in 2 clicks and then checkout.
pay with balance
Paying with a bank balance when checking out at a storefront is a new type of payment experience we experimented with. User pays directly with their bank balance without having to use a credit or debit card. Once a Brass Money account is connected, the bank account balance is selected and checkout is super quick.
pay with saved cards
Paying with cards is standard, Brass Money partners with payment infrastructure companies such as Paystack and Flutterwave to provide branded Debit cards which users can select at checkout.
additional features
In addition to the checkout features we designed, we experimented with the idea of decoupling the experience and making it a stand-alone product. We also designed a "save towards this" feature to allow users to create a budget inside their Brass Money account. Once the setup, the app is designed to use a set of instructions to contribute to the the budget.
Impact
Brilliant collaboration with the Brass Money team.
Impact contains sensitive company information is redacted, please reach out for walkthrough.
What did i learn?
I learned a lot while working on this project, from speaking to subject matter experts, collaborating with multiple teams and dealing with feedback from multiple channels without letting my ego get in the way. This was a wonderful project and one of the best set features i designed while working on Brass commerce. Here are some other important lessons learned:
Effective Communication: Understanding how to communicate design concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders was crucial for alignment.
Balancing Speed and Quality: It's vital to find the right balance between moving quickly and maintaining high-quality standards in design outputs.
Data-Driven Decisions: The necessity of having sufficient data to inform design decisions became apparent, highlighting areas for improvement in data collection and analysis.
User-Centric Design: Prioritizing user needs over internal timelines can lead to more successful and well-received products.
Collaboration is Key: I learned the importance of involving every team member in the design process, fostering a collaborative environment that values each perspective.
credits
Thanks to this incredible team we exceeded expectations, S/O to them:
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Engineering / QA
Damilola
Product Design
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Princess Akari
Impact
Brilliant collaboration with the Brass Money team.
Impact contains sensitive company information is redacted, please reach out for walkthrough.
What did i learn?
I learned a lot while working on this project, from speaking to subject matter experts, collaborating with multiple teams and dealing with feedback from multiple channels without letting my ego get in the way. This was a wonderful project and one of the best set features i designed while working on Brass commerce. Here are some other important lessons learned:
Effective Communication: Understanding how to communicate design concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders was crucial for alignment.
Balancing Speed and Quality: It's vital to find the right balance between moving quickly and maintaining high-quality standards in design outputs.
Data-Driven Decisions: The necessity of having sufficient data to inform design decisions became apparent, highlighting areas for improvement in data collection and analysis.
User-Centric Design: Prioritizing user needs over internal timelines can lead to more successful and well-received products.
Collaboration is Key: I learned the importance of involving every team member in the design process, fostering a collaborative environment that values each perspective.
credits
Thanks to this incredible team we exceeded expectations, S/O to them:
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Engineering / QA
Damilola
Product Design
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Princess Akari
Impact
Brilliant collaboration with the Brass Money team.
Impact contains sensitive company information is redacted, please reach out for walkthrough.
What did i learn?
I learned a lot while working on this project, from speaking to subject matter experts, collaborating with multiple teams and dealing with feedback from multiple channels without letting my ego get in the way. This was a wonderful project and one of the best set features i designed while working on Brass commerce. Here are some other important lessons learned:
Effective Communication: Understanding how to communicate design concepts effectively to both technical and non-technical stakeholders was crucial for alignment.
Balancing Speed and Quality: It's vital to find the right balance between moving quickly and maintaining high-quality standards in design outputs.
Data-Driven Decisions: The necessity of having sufficient data to inform design decisions became apparent, highlighting areas for improvement in data collection and analysis.
User-Centric Design: Prioritizing user needs over internal timelines can lead to more successful and well-received products.
Collaboration is Key: I learned the importance of involving every team member in the design process, fostering a collaborative environment that values each perspective.
credits
Thanks to this incredible team we exceeded expectations, S/O to them:
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Engineering / QA
Damilola
Product Design
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Product Management
Kemdirim Akujuobi
Princess Akari
Maintained by Kemdirim
© 2024
London, UK
10:47 AM