Client
Fuelsplit
Year
2026
Duration
12 weeks
Stack
Figma
Deliverables
high-fidelity UI designs, interactive prototype, farmer dashboard UI, mobile-responsive layouts, design system
The Problem
In Lagos, fuel prices kept rising while salaries stayed largely stagnant, and both drivers and passengers were spending a growing share of their income just to move around the city. Academic research on public transportation in Lagos confirmed this wasn't a minor inconvenience: one study found that 43.3% of respondents spent about 10% of their monthly income on transportation, with many spending significantly more. For minimum wage earners who couldn't afford ride-hailing and depended on public transport, fare increases placed real pressure on already limited resources. Drivers felt it too, facing higher fuel costs and struggling to justify driving alone. I designed FuelSplit, a platform allowing drivers to share their unused seats with passengers willing to contribute toward fuel costs — giving passengers a more affordable, comfortable ride, and giving drivers a way to offset the cost of trips they were already making.
Why Existing Tools Fail
Uber, inDrive, and Bolt offer convenient transportation, but their pricing models weren't built to address affordability for users being gradually priced out of the market. As fuel costs surged, many Nigerians turned to social media to voice frustration over rising fares, with many choosing to endure uncomfortable public buses over increasingly expensive ride-hailing options. This revealed a clear gap: no existing platform was designed specifically for people who needed a more affordable way to move around the city. Rather than competing on convenience, FuelSplit set out to solve a problem the incumbents weren't solving — financial accessibility during a period of rising costs.
The Insight
Finances, not convenience, had become the biggest barrier to accessing transportation in Lagos.
The Opportunity
That insight pointed to an underused resource already in motion: drivers making trips they were already going to make, with empty seats going to waste. FuelSplit was built around connecting those seats to passengers willing to contribute toward fuel — drivers earn an incentive of approximately 15% of the ride cost (excluding fuel consumed), and the platform takes a 10% service fee. Success meant easing the transportation burden on low-income Lagosians, and doing it through an experience simple enough for users across a wide range of ages and educational backgrounds.
Structuring the Solution
I grounded the solution in three real scenarios — a founder juggling investors, clients, and a small team across email and Slack; a freelance designer managing five clients at once; a consultant fielding upwards of a hundred emails a day, most irrelevant to their immediate priorities. These informed a navigation structure built around three pillars: a daily brief, tools to act on messages directly, and a unified workspace bringing every connected source into one place. From there I mapped the full information architecture and user flow, from onboarding through to acting on an item in the brief, giving the product a clear structural logic before any screen was designed.
Design Approach
With brand identity already established by the brand designer, my focus was entirely on information clarity and reducing friction. I grounded every screen in the obvious question a user would be asking at that moment — for drivers: where am I going, how many passengers can I take, who's requested to join, how much will I earn; for passengers: where is this driver going, how much will I contribute, how many seats are open, how do I join. I moved constantly between screens to ensure actions on one had a clear, visible result on the next, then built interactive prototypes to test whether the flow felt natural end-to-end and whether the product delivered on its core promise.
The Outcome
Walking through both the driver and passenger journeys, I checked whether the concept was understandable without explanation, whether passengers could quickly gauge their expected contribution, and whether users always knew their next action. This surfaced screens carrying unnecessary information and steps that added friction without adding value, which I cut. Because the product addressed a financial pain point directly, I made sure contribution amounts, trip details, and ride information stayed visible and transparent throughout.
What It Solves
The result is a two-sided platform that turns empty seats into affordable rides — passengers get a cheaper, more comfortable way to move around Lagos, and drivers offset the real cost of trips they were already taking.
Scope
As a self-directed concept project, this wasn't measured against live usage — but the system was built with the same rigor as a shipped product: 11 high-fidelity screens spanning onboarding, the daily brief, workspace views across three integrated channels, and message-level detail, all governed by a single design system.
Scope
FuelSplit shows a full 0-to-1 process grounded in real research rather than assumption — from identifying a financial insight overlooked by every existing competitor, through to a working system designed for accessibility across age and education levels, with a clear point of view held from problem to prototype.