Overview
Kowe, a fintech startup revolutionizing digital payments in Nigeria, was scaling fast with a user base of 0–40K. Staying ahead of the growth of your user base can get daunting really quickly. Kowe was in that phase and, alongside other technical tools like Mixpanel and Intercom, needed something a bit more streamlined and less intimidating, especially when looking at numbers that matter. So, we built Hash by Kowe—I dubbed the name, and the CEO bought it—to provide a clear, accessible admin dashboard for monitoring key backend metrics.
My contribution
Product strategy
UX writing
User research
Product design
The team
1 × CEO
1 × Product manager
1 × Product designer
5 × Engineers
Year
2023
Spotting a Competitive Edge
If you’re a technical person, you’d understand how intimidating using dashboards can be for a non-technical person, which influenced the goal for Hash: to be as non-intimidating as possible, such that a non-technical person like a customer support agent can take a look and not feel like they’re about to set off a nuclear power grid. Hash focuses on simplicity, offering metrics like total users, daily active users, and transaction volumes in a way that’s easy to digest, even for a growing fintech.
Breaking Stereotypes
Speaking to stakeholders from product management and customer support, it was revealed that it can be overwhelming looking at dense data. To address this, I designed a compliance watchlist that flags users with KYC issues and provides tools to fix them directly in the dashboard, empowering admins to take action without needing to navigate technical jargon.
Admin-Focused Design
If the problem is understood, the solution would be simple and even simpler to understand and use. Serving administrators like product managers, customer support, and the CEO, Hash by Kowe includes:
Key Metrics: Total users, daily active users, new users, total transaction volume, daily transaction volume, and earnings (currently zero, as Kowe operates on a freemium model).
Compliance Watchlist: Highlights users with KYC issues, with tools to resolve them.
Admin Management: A feature to add more admins, supporting team growth.
Streamlined Development
One of the strengths of a startup is speed, so deadlines are often tight, and to dance through this, I made sure to leverage the design system, using reusable UI components, ensuring consistency while speeding up development. This allowed the engineering team to focus on functionality, delivering a polished dashboard on time.
The Result
Hash by Kowe delivered meaningful impact:
Enhanced Efficiency: Simplified monitoring for 40K users, cutting down time spent on compliance issues with actionable tools.
Better Insights: Clear metrics enabled the CEO and product managers to track user behaviour and transactions effortlessly.
Scalability Supported: The admin-adding feature ensured the dashboard could grow with Kowe’s team and user base.