category: product design | country: tanzania | year: 2018
Tigo is one of the largest telcos in Tanzania with over 13.5 million registered subscribers to their network. The company employs over 300,000 Tanzanians including an extended network of customer service representatives, mobile money merchants, sales agents and distributors.

The Brief
Wakala is the Swahili term for agent, and most commonly used in Tanzania. Mobile network operators and banks often use wakalas as an extension of their field force. A majority of them are foot solders, often working in busy cities and towns, doing various tasks like SIM registration, mobile money and airtime vending.

While a number electronic registration tools have been developed in recent years, our research showed few were really efficient, and the user experience was wanting. These pain points presented an opportunity for improvement - or perhaps a totally new direction.

This concept seeks to answer a key question. How might we design a product that is dedicated to this special user. A product that is built for and with the wakala, from the ground up?

my Approach
We had a small window to pitch this idea which meant efficient use of time without skipping key steps of the product design process. I spent a bulk of the time on user research, and then combined user flows with initial set of low fidelity wireframes.
interface design
I then moved on to visual design and tried to stay within the brand's attributes even with the absence of a specific guideline for digital. I also created the Wakala+ identity with the notion that someday it could grow to a stand-alone brand.
the prototype
And finally, seeing the first version on the phone after several iterations is always a huge reward.