Mobility · Nigeria · Product Design
🚗 Mobility · B2C · Community Safety

Carpooling That Puts
Safety & Community
First

Designed Parizzo a carpooling app that matches commuters with verified workers in their profession, making shared mobility safer, more trusted, and community-driven.

70%
Daily Active Use
3+
Profession Pools
4.8★
Avg. Safety Rating
Mobile
iOS + Android
My Role
Lead Product Designer
Product
Parizzo
Type
Mobility · B2C
Team
UX/UI · iOS Dev · Backend
Tools
Figma · Maze · FigJam
01 The Problem

Carpooling apps existed. But no one trusted the strangers in them.

Existing carpooling apps in Nigeria faced a fundamental trust barrier especially for women and solo commuters. Sharing a car with a random person, regardless of star ratings, didn't feel safe. The behaviour of random people from different walks of life was too unpredictable.

Parizzo's thesis was simple: professional identity is a trust signal. By restricting pools to people who share your profession doctors with doctors, teachers with teachers, bankers with bankers you reduce social distance dramatically and make carpooling feel genuinely safe.

The Core Design Tension
Safety vs. Supply
Restricting by profession shrinks the pool of available rides. How do you design for a great experience when supply is intentionally limited?
Verification without friction
Professional verification needed to be robust enough to build trust but not so complex that it killed sign-up conversion.
Retention for non-daily users
Many users carpooled 2–3 days a week, not every day. The app needed to stay sticky even when not used daily.
02 · My Contribution

What I personally designed and solved

Created
the professional verification onboarding flow a 3-step process that confirmed credentials without creating drop-off, achieving 78% completion in usability testing
Designed
the matching algorithm UI translating complex backend logic into a simple, transparent "Why you matched" screen that built user trust in the pairing
Solved
the low-supply problem through a "Request Ahead" scheduling feature, shifting user behaviour from on-demand to pre-planned and evening out supply/demand imbalance
03 Design Process

Understand, Define, Design and Ship

🔍
Research
Commuter interviews & safety study
🎯
Define
Personas & user journey maps
✏️
Ideate
Wireframes & concept testing
🔨
Prototype
Hi-fi Figma + Maze testing
🚀
Ship
iOS + Android delivery
04 Research Findings

Safety isn't a feature. It's the product.

🛡️
Trust Persona The Cautious Commuter
Primarily women, aged 25–38, commuting to professional workplaces. Had used Uber but felt exposed. Open to carpooling if they could see shared professional context with the driver before accepting.
"I wouldn't get in a car with a random person. But if I know they're also a nurse at the same hospital? That changes everything."
⚡
Value Persona The Cost-Conscious Commuter
Male and female, 22–35, motivated primarily by cost savings. Willing to sacrifice convenience for 40–60% cheaper commutes. Safety was a secondary concern but still needed to feel "good enough".
"I spend ₦15,000 a month on Uber. If Parizzo can cut that by half, I'll adapt my schedule to match available rides."
Key Insight
Professional = Trust
73% of users in research said knowing a driver's profession made them significantly more comfortable more than star ratings or photo verification alone
Design Win
Request Ahead
Scheduling rides 1–3 days in advance reduced "no ride available" frustration by giving supply time to organically meet demand and improved daily active use
Retention Lever
Community
Users who formed recurring ride matches with the same colleagues had 3× higher 30-day retention we leaned into this by surfacing "regular ride partners" prominently
05 Key Design Decisions

Three decisions that defined Parizzo

01
Professional Verification in 3 Steps
Work email verification → ID upload → employer confirmation. Each step was optional to complete later, reducing onboarding drop-off while still building a verified user base over time.
02
"Why You Matched" Transparency Screen
Before accepting a ride, users see: shared profession, route overlap %, mutual connections, and safety rating. This one screen answered 80% of the trust questions raised in user testing.
03
Regular Ride Partners Feature
When you ride with the same person 3+ times, they become a "Regular" surfaced at the top of your matching list. Turned transactional rides into community relationships.
UI Design

Six screens. One seamless commute.

From signing up to arriving at work — the Parizzo mobile app guides professionals through every step of a shared commute, built around trust, verified routes, and real-time coordination.

📱 Mobile App iOS & Android · Rider & Driver flows
🍀
Parizzo
Sign in
Register
Splash & Login
🔍 Search for Trips Directly
⋮
📍
📍
📍
Search for Available Ride Providers
🏠 Leave Home
💼 Leave Work
Map & Route Search
9:31
Available Ride Providers
Nearby matched routes
B
Benjamin Dube
★★★★★ — 4:32 PM
📍 Lekki, Lagos Nigeria
₦675.00
View Details
K
Kareem Benjamin
★★★★ — 3:10 PM
📍 Lekki, Lagos Nigeria
₦675.00
View Details
Available Providers
🗺️
Select Route
Route 1
Route 2
Route 3
Done
Route Selection
✓
Congrats
Your Carpool with Emeka is set!
Please to Punch it!
Contact Emeka
Carpool Confirmed
9:31
Accepted Request
A
Angelina Sparks
Lekki, Lagos · 4:02 PM
₦675.00
Drop Off
O
Okafor Samson
Lekki, Lagos · 4:02 PM
₦675.00
Drop Off
Active Trip · Drop-off
📱 Final Screens

Parizzo, screen by screen

From onboarding to ride selection and driver matching — the full carpooling experience designed for safe, community-driven mobility.

Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
Parizzo Screen
07 · Reflection

What Parizzo taught me about designing for behaviour change

What worked well
The core thesis was validated in research
The professional-trust model wasn't assumed it was tested. The research clearly showed that professional identity was more powerful than any other trust signal we tested. Building on a validated insight made every design decision easier.
What I'd do differently
Design for the supply side first
We focused heavily on the passenger experience. Drivers needed equal UX love their willingness to offer rides was the foundation everything else depended on. I'd split the design effort more equally from the start.
Senior-level insight
Limiting your product can be a design strength
Restricting Parizzo to verified professionals felt like a limitation. In reality it was the product's defining strength a scarcity that made every ride feel special. Constraints as a design tool, not a handicap.
What I'd measure next
Trust score over time
I'd instrument a "perceived trust score" across the user journey measuring at match reveal, ride acceptance, and post-ride rating to quantify which design elements were actually moving the needle on the core metric.
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