- Role
- Solo — UX audit, redesign, UI, design system
- Timeline
- ~3 weeks, self-initiated
- Type
- Redesign concept
- Platform
- Mobile (iOS & Android)
- Status
- Not affiliated with Wave · concept only
Context
Wave is one of the most widely used mobile-money apps in West Africa. I use it daily, and I kept hitting the same friction points — so I ran a structured UX audit and redesigned the core experience. This is an independent concept, not commissioned by or affiliated with Wave.
Constraints & scope
- Independent project — no access to Wave's users, analytics or roadmap.
- In scope: onboarding, home/balance, send & receive, beneficiaries, transaction history.
- Out of scope: KYC, agent network, savings products, cross-border transfer.
- Had to preserve the low-bandwidth, low-end-device reality of the user base.
- Findings are based on my own heuristic audit and public app-store reviews, not primary research.
UX audit — what's broken
I walked every core flow and scored it against usability heuristics and WCAG. Five issues came up repeatedly:
Complex navigation
Core actions like sending money take too many steps. Users lose their place in long flows.
Weak visual hierarchy
Balance, transactions and CTAs lack visual priority. Users scan but don't find what they need.
Low accessibility
Several text/background pairs fall short of WCAG AA contrast, hurting readability outdoors and for low-vision users.
Poor contact management
No clear place to find, add or manage beneficiaries — a core, repeated task.
Weak brand identity
Inconsistent visual language across screens; no design system holding it together.
Strategy & design decisions
Each audit finding maps to a specific design response:
Navigation redesign
Surface the 3 most-used actions (Send, Receive, Balance) within one tap and cut steps out of the transfer flow.
Visual hierarchy system
A clear type scale and spacing system. Balance becomes the hero element; CTAs are high-contrast and consistently placed.
Accessible colour palette
Rebuilt the colour system to meet WCAG AA contrast at every text size — verified with a contrast checker.
Beneficiary management
A dedicated contacts screen with search, recent contacts and clear add/manage actions to cut friction on repeat transfers.
Consistent design system
A component library (buttons, cards, inputs, modals) so every screen stays visually consistent.
Redesigned screens
Outcomes
Success criteria I designed against
- Send-money flow reduced from its current step count to 3 screens.
- Balance and primary CTA meet WCAG AA contrast (4.5:1) at every size.
- Add / find a beneficiary reachable in 2 taps from home.
- One documented component library covering every screen in the redesign.
How I pressure-tested the design
- Before/after step-count comparison of the transfer flow.
- Contrast audit of the new palette with a WCAG contrast checker (all text ≥ 4.5:1).
- Prototype walkthrough of send, receive and beneficiary tasks.
Next step — Moderated testing with 5–8 current Wave users on low-end Android devices, comparing task time and error rate against the live app.
Reflections & what I'd do next
This redesign deepened my understanding of financial UX — trust signals, security perception, and accessibility on low-end hardware — and gave me practice building a design system from zero across 20+ screens. With more time I'd run the moderated test above, design the error and edge states in full, and validate the new navigation with a first-click test.
“The best fintech UX feels invisible — the user moves money without ever feeling like they're operating software.”