2021 – 2023 · Role: Head of Design · Alerzo · B2B retail and fintech for 100,000+ merchants across Nigeria · Team: Cross-functional product team · Scope: Design lead for the rebuild: a four-person team across three products
Context
AlerzoShop is Alerzo's B2B retail product for informal-economy merchants across Nigeria, one of three products I led design for as Head of Design.
It is a B2B e-commerce platform that lets retailers stock their shops without the time and cost of traditional markets, rebuilt as one system across iOS, Android and web.
Challenge
The logistics gap: late deliveries and cancelled orders disrupted retailers who depend on consistent stock.
Cultural nuance: an English-only interface felt foreign to many users and created friction in adoption.
Environmental constraints: high data costs called for a lightweight visual language that saved bandwidth without losing clarity.
Discovery
We spent time with shop owners across regions. Localisation turned out to be essential utility, not a nice-to-have, so English, Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa became a core requirement. Retailers also wanted a shop personalised to their region and buying patterns.
Approach
Explore widely, then cut — I led a phase of divergent exploration, from voice-activated ordering to simplified grid layouts.
Logos over lifestyle photography — Product cards moved from lifestyle imagery to clear, recognisable brand logos (Maltina, Pringles) so products are recognised faster on low connectivity.
One system across web and mobile — A unified design system let us ship features on web and mobile at the same time.
Craft
A team of four, three products — Built and led the product design team across AlerzoShop, AlerzoPay and Veedez; set the hiring bar, review cadence and weekly design ritual.
Research in the markets themselves — 22 shop-along sessions and ledger audits with micro-merchants in Ibadan and Lagos informed all three products.
One system across all three — A modular design system shared across the products cut new-screen build time by roughly half.
Four languages, one tap — An emoji-enhanced language selector made switching between four languages fast.
A filter built for FMCG — A categorisation system around the essential inventory retailers reorder most often.
Photography that looks like the users — Replaced generic stock imagery with photographs reflecting real user demographics, to build trust and relatability.
Result
“Since I started using AlerzoShop, ordering goods has been easy and I get great discounts too.” Ismotech Store, retailer.
Impact
100K+ — Retailers supported
4 — Languages
3 — Platforms: iOS, Android and web
~50% — Faster new-screen builds
Reflection
Localisation is not translation. It means understanding cultural context and building for it from the ground up. Design for edge cases and underserved people first, and the mainstream experience follows.
Tools
Figma
Design systems
Field research
How it came together
What the markets taught us
Went to the markets — 22 shop-alongs and ledger audits in Ibadan and Lagos.
Shared what we saw — The findings fed AlerzoShop, AlerzoPay and Veedez.
Built one system for all three — A single modular design system that every product used.
Shipped faster — New screens took about half the time.
I’m , a Senior Product Designer and Design Engineer. Ten years across fintech, healthtech, commerce and logistics, from user research to production code.
I studied graphic design, led a product design team at Alerzo, and now design and build private capital software at DealStack.
My best ideas come from where products are actually used: market stalls in Lagos and Ibadan, a fund administrator’s spreadsheets, a bank’s support queue. I turn what I find there into clear, calm systems.
Then I help build them. At DealStack I coded about 90% of our design system in React, so what ships is what was designed.
User research
Interviews, field studies, usability and tree testing. I learn from what people do, not only what they say, and turn it into product decisions.
User interviews · Usability testing · Field research · Journey mapping · Analytics
Product design and systems
End-to-end product design for complex B2B and fintech software: clear flows, sound information architecture and design systems that scale.
Interaction design · Information architecture · Design systems · Prototyping · Accessibility (WCAG 2.1)
Design engineering
I prototype and build in React and TypeScript, so designs are tested against real data and what ships matches what was designed.
Recommendations from my LinkedIn profile, from a manager, a fellow designer and the marketers I’ve shipped with.
“Ayodeji’s commitment to excellence is evident in every project he undertakes. He consistently delivers high-quality designs that exceed expectations, making him an invaluable team member.”
“Working alongside Ayo was truly inspiring. His leadership in product design, coupled with his ability to bridge design and engineering, elevates the entire team’s output.”
AAAbdul-Lateef AkinyemiSenior Product Designer
“Ayodeji is an exceptional team player who brings creativity and strategic thinking to every collaboration. His ability to translate complex problems into elegant solutions is remarkable.”
“Ayo is a creative mind who consistently pushes boundaries. His design work is not just visually stunning but strategically sound, always keeping the end user in focus.”
POPromise OsigweMarketing Communications
Beyond the day job.
Mentoring, speaking, and a few companies and products of my own.
Speaking
Tech Rise Africa, to 1,000 people. DSGN Discussions, to 400+. On design leadership, product systems and creative practice.
Companies I’ve founded, and products I build in my own time.
Empocreat (The EOC) builds digital products, brands and experiences with clarity and purpose. I founded it in 2016 and have directed creative strategy for 20+ brand and product projects across fintech, education, consumer tech and e-commerce.
MoveMoni compares exchange rates and fees across international money-transfer providers in real time, so people can see who is cheapest for their route before they send. Users save 3–5% on average on international transfers.
Clariti is a personal finance companion that helps people track spending, budget smarter and take control of their money in one simple app. It started inside MoveMoni and now stands on its own.
A free, educational world map built on the Equal Earth projection. It folds into a globe, shows what Mercator distorts, and lets you compare countries at their real size. Made for classrooms first, after the UN General Assembly voted in September 2026 to encourage equal-area maps.
Cleap turns a product’s code, database, infrastructure and integrations into one live, zoomable map, so people who build products without reading code can still see how everything fits together.
An open benchmark for one question: given a piece of code, how good is a plain-English description of it? Labels are scored on accuracy, specificity and whether someone who can’t read code would actually understand them. It grew out of Cleap and is at the scaffold stage: a seed set of samples and the scoring pipeline, with real model runs still to come.
