Poor user interface & navigability
For customers with lower digital literacy, a poorly designed interface can create friction and fear. Women face this challenge disproportionately: they are more likely to have lower digital literacy and to rely on feature phones, making interface design a gendered issue. Research shows that 62% of women customers cite security fears and fear of fraud as primary reasons for not using digital financial services (CFI, 2026), and much of that fear is amplified when confusing interfaces make it unclear whether a transaction has succeeded or failed.
7 Connected Barriers
Most Relevant Segments
- 01. Excluded, marginalized
- 02. Excluded, high potential
- 03. Included, underserved
- 04. Included, not underserved
Most Relevant Customer Journey Phases
- Phase 1: Account Ownership
- Phase 2: Basic Account Usage
- Phase 3: Active Account Usage
- Phase 4: Economic Empowerment
Key Evidence
UI barriers are documented and widespread, with measurable effects on adoption and usage.
- 62% of women customers report security fears and fear of fraud as primary reasons for not using digital financial services — fears that are amplified when interfaces do not clearly confirm transaction status. (Center for Financial Inclusion, 2026)
- The Nigeria Consumer Protection in Digital Finance Survey found that 16% of digital finance customers cited ‘difficulty using shortcode menu or app’ as a common challenge — the 4th most cited issue among customers. (IPA, 2021, as cited in MSC, 2022)
A growing body of evidence points to specific design choices—shallow navigation, visual cues, local language, and audio—that can meaningfully reduce this barrier.
- ‘Navigation from hierarchical menus common in USSD are disliked by consumers. Users like to go directly to the thing they need done.’ Menus should avoid ‘navigating’ and focus on ‘doing,’ presented as a limited list without technical jargon. The Karandaaz Pakistan home screen is cited as a positive example of ‘shallow’ navigation. (CGAP, 2016)
- bKash (Bangladesh) designed its mobile money product for low-literacy customers by assigning each service a distinct icon and color, allowing users to navigate purely through visual cues without needing to read menus. (Level One Project, 2025)
- Jazz Cash (Pakistan) provided contextual voice instructions at every step of the mobile money process, explaining in plain language what was happening at each stage of the interface. (Level One Project, 2025)
Interventions that have successfully addressed this barrier
The following Exemplar represents one evidence-based interventions that has shown success in addressing this particular barrier. There may be other Exemplars for this barrier in the larger Barriers & Exemplars Analysis compendium deck.
