Angle

The situation

Nigerian marketplaces mostly work one way. Fixed prices, private negotiation, a lot of back-and-forth in DMs. The founder wanted to try something different. What if pricing was set by demand, not by DMs? What if buyers competed for products through open bidding, and sellers got the fair market value of what they were selling, in the open, without haggling for hours?

The idea was strong. But bidding introduces something most Nigerian marketplaces don’t have to deal with: emotional stakes. Someone wins. Someone loses. Money is involved. Trust becomes the whole game.

Angle had to earn that trust from the first screen.

What I did

I designed the product end to end. Product strategy, user research (five in-depth interviews with buyers and sellers, plus competitor analysis across eBay, Jiji, Facebook Marketplace, and other bidding platforms), user flows, information architecture, the mobile app, the seller dashboard, the landing page, the design system, and the handover documentation the dev team is currently building from.

How I approached it

Trust was designed into every screen.

Bidding platforms live or die on whether people trust them. So I designed with visible reassurance at every step. Seller ratings and profile completeness front and centre. Bid history and status updates that never leave anyone wondering. Escrow-style payment protection built into the flow, so sellers only get paid after buyers confirm receipt. Nothing was assumed. Everything was shown.

Logistics was the surprise, and it shaped the model.

I went into research expecting to find pricing and trust as the biggest pain points. Logistics came up in every single interview. Deliveries were lost, sellers were frustrated, and buyers were unsure about what was happening with their orders. So instead of building logistics inside the platform, I designed Angle to sit outside of it. Sellers manage their own delivery, buyers confirm receipt, and the platform releases payment. Lean, scalable, and much easier for Nigerian sellers to actually run.

Bidding had to feel exciting, not stressful.

The joy of an auction is the moment of winning. But most bidding interfaces make you feel like you’re in a stressful transaction. So I designed for the emotional payoff. Countdown timers that feel like anticipation, not pressure. Bid confirmations that acknowledge the moment. Notifications that make winning feel like winning. The point of Angle wasn’t just to be a marketplace. It was to make people feel something.

The seller experience had to earn their loyalty.

Sellers were the risk. If they didn’t trust the platform, there would be no products to bid on. So I designed a seller dashboard that treated them like the professionals they are. Clear listings management, transparent payment tracking, real store profiles that let them build reputation. Not a stripped-down “vendor portal.” A proper business tool.

What happened

The design was approved and moved to development, where the team is actively building. The working relationship continues, which is the outcome I care about most.

Looking back

Angle was the project that taught me research doesn’t just answer questions. It changes the questions. I went into the interviews expecting to design around trust and pricing. I came out with logistics as the strategic decision that shaped the entire business model.

That’s the case for doing real research, even when the timeline is tight. You don’t know what you don’t know until someone sits across from you and tells you.