Re-designing Survey54's Safiyo - Reimagining how businesses survey consumers in emerging markets.

Survey54 is market and data intelligence Start-up designed helping organisations understand consumers in emerging markets. Businesses like Uber, Spotify and Nissan use Safiyo to get data insights on survey consumers in Africa.

In spite of this success so far, the start-up is starting to lose some of it's footing in the market research industry to other competitors.

As any Market research executive who has ever used Safiyo knows, it can be quite difficult to create surveys or set up trackers. However, once you have it figured out, you can run your surveys in little time. In a saturated marketplace with a growing list of enticing alternatives, most market researchers are less willing to put in that effort, so it was time for Safiyo to adapt to meet their needs.

Hired as a Product Designer, I worked alongside…

Founder (Stephan), Creative Lead (Imisi Oyinloye), 1 Graphic Designer(Emmanuel Essien), a Product Manager(Lionel Ngunjiri), Engineering Lead (Samuel Chinyeze), 3 Frontend Engineers, 2 Back-end Engineers, 3 Quality Assurance experts, Data analysts and Market Researcher (Kut) in developing a few products.

The problem

The Goal was to redesign Safiyo in collaboration…

with the Survey54's development and research team, as part of a larger overhaul of Survey54 products, to improve customer experience and help the company stay ahead of the curve amid growing competition from new startups in the market.

The outcome so far…

We built a more intuitive product, eliminating several bottlenecks and helped market executives and researchers set up Surveys and get insights quicker.

Gathering Context

The outcome of my preliminary workshops & research, and the defining hypothesis of the redesign was that; by enabling clients or market researchers survey quicker and making the application more intuitive, we would reduce drop off rate. This was validated using client interviews and data analysis by the user research team before, during, and after the redesign.

After unncovering various challenges the big question

“How might we enable seamless market surveying of consumers in Africa?”

Alternatively “How might we enable businesses to crowdsource insights from consumers in

Crafting a Vision and a new design language: A Journey Towards Seamless market surveying

The Safiyo redesign project was the perfect opportunity to drive the adoption of a new design strategy and design system at Survey54. The design strategy for instance took into account various aspects, including user needs and expectations, market analysis, business goals, and our technological capabilities.

Survey 54 was moving to overhaul its product line, so with the design system we laid the foundations for the colours, typography, and style, from the complex navigation and copy to something a lot easier to use and nicer to look at.. This process was not just about aesthetics or functionality; it was about crafting an intuitive, inclusive, and versatile framework that resonates with diverse users globally.

Overhauling Safiyo's Architecture/Content Structure/FLOW

As I helped the team with the design systems, I also collaborated with my PMs, as we undertook a comprehensive review and overhaul of Safiyo’s architecture. Our goal was to streamline the user experience by optimizing the flow and simplifying the content structure. This process included:

1. Mapping out Information Architecture – Aligning user needs with business objectives.

2. Refining User Flows – Ensuring seamless navigation across touchpoints.

3. Iterative Wireframing – Prototyping based on competitive analysis and user feedback.

By systematically addressing these aspects, we created a robust foundation that enhanced usability and performance for Safiyo’s users.

We also tried as much to align with Leadership

Throughout the exploration phase, we maintained constant alignment with leadership’s strategic objectives. This allowed us to:

1. Leverage Data-Driven Decisions – Prioritizing trackers and insights that provided the most value to stakeholders.

2. Adapt to Feedback Loops – Ensuring our decisions were flexible and responsive to leadership feedback.

3. Create Scalable Solutions – Developing features and flows that would support future growth and sustainability of the platform.

By aligning closely with leadership, we ensured that the design direction supported both immediate project needs and long-term business goals.

Final designs/Some Solutions

After weaving through various ideas and iterating with the team, here some of the solutions ended up designing the following solutions; As it's a large platform, I can only show few;

Old design

New Designs

Prototype

Aftermath

Since the launch of Safiyo and our tracker systems, we have been able to acquire customers like Spotify, Uber, Kellogs, Colgate, Nissan Motors, and many others. We have been able to work with budding startups and provided them with effective research services.

However success for us has been enabling investors, founders, business owners, and marketing executives both inside and outside Africa the ability to get credible insights into the African market. As you can already tell it was not a one way street, we explored different ideas and we continued to iterate even till this day the team still iterates. Find some of our other impact below