Project Overview
Akumula is a fintech product created for the Brazilian market, with a team based across Brazil and the UK.
The idea was to make crypto investing more accessible by connecting it to something people already do every day: spending.Instead of requiring users to actively make individual investments, Akumula allowed them to automatically put money into selected cryptocurrencies through their everyday spending.
Users could choose their preferred crypto, manage how much they wanted to contribute and track their holdings and performance over time.One of the biggest UX challenges was making the movement of money easy to understand.
Contributions were not reflected in the user's crypto balance immediately and could take several days to process, so the experience needed to clearly communicate pending transactions, successful investments and failed or cancelled payments without making users feel like their money had disappeared.
The challenge was ultimately about trust. Taking a relatively complex financial process happening behind the scenes and turning it into an experience that felt simple, transparent and predictable.
My Contributions
I worked on the UX/UI design of the Akumula mobile app, helping shape the experience around onboarding, payments, crypto selection, top-ups, withdrawals, transaction history and portfolio tracking.
A major focus was designing clear feedback around the investment process. Because payments could take several days before appearing as crypto holdings, I designed different transaction states and supporting messaging to help users understand where their money was at each stage. Pending, successful, cancelled and failed transactions needed to be clearly differentiated while still feeling like part of one consistent journey.
I also worked extensively with microinteractions and motion throughout the product. Animations were used to provide feedback, communicate successful or failed actions and make transitions between different states easier to understand. Rather than using motion purely for visual effect, we used it to make the financial experience feel more responsive and reassuring.
Throughout the project, I collaborated remotely with a team spread across Brazil, the UK and Malaysia. Working across significantly different time zones meant adapting how we communicated, reviewed designs and made decisions, while keeping the project moving despite limited overlapping working hours.
