Peer | 2025

redefining mobility 🚗

Background

Peer's a started-up company operating in West Africa dedicated to making daily travel for locals and tourists safer and cost-effective.

Mission

Safety

Most drivers and their vehicles aren’t roadworthy due to weak state vetting, leading to increased accidents, unqualified drivers, and crimes involving passengers.

Cost-effectiveness

We’re planning on increasing affordability by addressing price gouging which has been a long standing tradition of the Gambia’s transportation industry.

Instead of driver-controlled pricing, we’re using a market-based model that factors in fuel, distance, time, and surcharges.

Understanding the problem

Before I start to design a GUI interface, I analyze the main pain points of traditional taxi service in the Gambia.

Challenges in Traditional Taxis in the Gambia

Incomprehensive vehicle inspection
Lack of rigorous driver vetting process
Overcharging of fares due to an unmetered system
Poor reliability and convenience

Problem statements

Empower both domestic and tourist customers with a cost-effective, safer and convenient alternative to traditional taxis.
Design a platform that provides leads for drivers to fulfill services for customers.

User research

Target Audience

30%

Locals

100%

Tourists

“Most of the tourists have probably used similar apps including, Uber, Bolt or Heetch, what we have to do is provide them with an alternative” -Stakeholder

Potential Users (Locals)

Target Populace

30%

Potential Paying Users

510k

1.7 million urban population multiplied by the target formally employed audience of 30% equals to 510,000 potential users from the urban population.

Potential Users (Tourists)

275k

Tourists Arrivals (2024)

$50M

Revenue Receipts (2024)

275k

Potential Paying Users

“In 2024, The Gambia generated around 47.00 million US dollars in the tourism sector alone. This corresponds to 2.9 percent of its gross domestic product. Source: https://www.worlddata.info/”

User Types & Needs

I found out two types of users and mapped their demands with them:

Customers → Need a safer, affordable, reliable and convenient alternative to traditional taxis.

Drivers → Need fair pay, transparent monitoring plus choice in which assignments they accept.

Industry Viability

Given the many challenges posed by traditional taxis, as discussed earlier, ride-hailing presents a potentially viable industry in The Gambia.

Comparative Analysis

I did a comparative analysis comparing Peer to some well-known similar ride-hailing services in West Africa including Bolt and Yango.

Process

Areas of analysis:

Customer onboarding
Vehicle Selection
Payment methods
Ratings and reviews
Pickup area
Safety tools

Findings such as these shows us potential opportunities or risks that can be taken advantage of within our own products.

Customer platform empowers locals and tourists by providing leads to drivers. After downloading the app, they’re able to enter their pickup and drop off address, select their vehicle of choice then finalize by confirming the trip.
The driver platform is designed to be able to see and accept requests from customers. They have the option to see the fare, distance, and vehicle type for that specific trip and they can reject or accept the trip.

Product Requirements

Information Architecture (IA)

I proceeded to organize and structure content in a way that makes it easy for users to find what they need and accomplish their goals efficiently.

Three goals we wanted to achieve:

Clarity & Usability
Efficient Navigation
Content Prioritization

Customer

Driver

These are isolated scenarios intended to capture a portion of the overall content taken from the IA tailored to make this portfolio concise and focused.

User interface (GUI)

The GUI focused on the MVP for both platforms, prioritizing the full journey of the customer and driver, even as new features began to take shape.

Key UI Screens & Features

Customer Platform (Search, Enter address, Vehicle selection, Pickup, ETA and Drop-off)
Driver Platform (Home, Menu, Activity charts, Job selection, Earnings)

Customer UI

Driver UI

Prototype

In collaboration with developers, they expressed the need for a prototype to serve as a tool for understanding user interactions and guiding product development.

The goal is to use the prototype as leverage for building a more user-centered and effective product.

Two key considerations were emphasized:

Depth of Interactivity: Ensuring the prototype accurately reflects user flow and behavior.
High Fidelity: Capturing visual and functional details close to the final product.

Usability Testing

I identified our target demographic and guided them through a series of tasks using the prototype to support our user testing efforts.

Demographic

How easy is it to book a trip?

Method

Guerrilla testing

Tasks

How easy is it to book a trip?
What is your experience identifying your driver?
How is the payment confirmation process during your trip?
How would you rate your overall experience?

REsults

75% successful rate

What is your experience identifying your driver?

100% successful rate

How is the payment confirmation process during your trip?

87.5% successful rate

How would you rate your overall experience out of 10?

Overall success rate (excluding the survey question)

87.5%

9.25 score out of 10

Key Insights:

Majority of users were able to complete tasks without issues.
Task 2 performed flawlessly, showing strong usability in that flow.
Task 1 had the lowest score (75%) — worth investigating what caused difficulties for the remaining 25% of users.

Next Steps:

Conduct follow-up interviews or usability testing focused on Task 1.
Improve clarity or guidance in areas where users hesitated or failed.
Re-test after refinements to aim for 90% or more consistency across all tasks

Impact

We’ve seen significant success with this product, even in its pilot phase using TestFlight.

Here are some of the key achievements so far:

Launched our MVP with a user experience tailored for West African markets primarily the Gambia, increasing user engagement by over 40% in 6 pilot regions.