USSD Investing

01 / Context

The product situation.

Smartphone ownership and mobile-data access should not determine whether a customer can complete essential investment actions. InvestNow needed a lower-bandwidth channel that could extend access without reproducing the full app inside a constrained interface.

02 / Problem

What needed to change.

Customers with limited connectivity or basic devices could not reliably access core investment services through the existing digital channels.

03 / My responsibility

What I personally owned.

• Defined and prioritised the essential USSD investment journeys.
• Led product testing and development coordination.
• Managed dependencies with internal teams, MTN and other telecom partners.

04 / Research and evidence

How I reduced uncertainty.

• Mapped the smallest set of high-value actions suitable for short USSD sessions.
• Tested navigation, input handling, timeout recovery and error messages.
• Reviewed telecom constraints and operational dependencies with delivery partners.

05 / Constraints

The boundaries were real.

• Short sessions, numeric input and limited screen space.
• Variable telecom reliability and third-party dependencies.
• Security and confirmation requirements for financial actions.

06 / Decisions and trade-offs

The choices I made.

• Focused the channel on essential tasks rather than attempting feature parity with mobile and web.
• Reduced step count and made confirmation states explicit.
• Designed recovery paths for timeouts and incomplete sessions.

07 / Delivery and collaboration

How the work moved.

I coordinated engineering, operations and telecom partners through workflow definition, testing and issue resolution, while keeping channel scope aligned with the wider InvestNow product strategy.

08 / Results

What the work enabled.

• Essential investment journeys adapted for basic mobile devices
• USSD incorporated into InvestNow’s multi-channel product foundation
• Telecom-partner testing and delivery workflow established

09 / What I learned

The judgement I carried forward.

Designing for USSD requires ruthless prioritisation. Every step, response and failure state must justify its place inside a constrained session.