Troski (2026)
A multimodal transit companion for Accra commuters — built to turn the daily guesswork of trotro queues, terminal waits, and cash fares into one calm routine: open the app, see your queue, tap to pay, go.
Client
Troski
Role
Lead Product Designer
Timeline
7 weeks
Platform
Mobile App · iOS & Android
The Challenge
What needed solving.
Troski takes its name from the trotro — the privately-run minibuses that move most of Accra to and from work every day. The system runs on the city's energy, but it runs on guesswork too: queue depth at a terminal is invisible until you're standing in it, fares are cash-only and rarely exact, and a single cross-town trip can mean stitching together a bus, an okada and a taxi with nothing to tell you which combination actually gets you there fastest. We were asked to design the app every regular trotro rider has wished existed — one that replaces the guessing with knowing, before they've even left the house.
The Approach
How we solved it.
We built Troski around three simple promises that ended up shaping everything else: show the wait before the commuter leaves home, replace loose change with a wallet that just works at the bus door, and let one search bar plan a trip across every mode in the city — bus, okada, train, taxi, van, even a chartered ride — so picking how to get somewhere takes seconds, not a conversation with a stranger at the station.
Key Insights
What the research told us.
01 — Finding
The wait is the whole anxiety
23 of 30 riders interviewed across Tema and Adum stations named 'not knowing how long the queue is' as their single biggest source of commute stress — ranked above traffic, weather, and fare cost combined.
What we did about it
People weren't afraid of the trip — they were afraid of not knowing. So the very first thing Troski shows a new user, before a single route is searched, is live queue depth and bay status for the terminals nearest them. 'Know your queue before you leave' became more than a tagline — it's the literal first promise the product makes, on the very first onboarding screen.
02 — Finding
Cash is a tax on trust
Riders estimated losing GH₵4–6 a week to 'no change' situations alone — drivers rounding fares up, conductors short-changing in the rush, or riders simply not boarding because they couldn't pay the exact amount.
What we did about it
We designed the Troski Wallet to be the default, not an add-on: top up once from a card or mobile money, then tap to pay or scan the driver's code at the door. No counted coins, no rounding arguments — just a balance that's always one glance away from the home screen, and a receipt for every fare paid.
03 — Finding
'Where to' is the real front door
In moderated sessions, 8 of 10 participants opened a maps or transit app already certain of their destination — and completely undecided on how they'd get there. Mode came second. Always.
What we did about it
So we rebuilt search around the destination, not the vehicle. Type where you're going once, and Troski quotes every way to get there — bus, okada, train, taxi, van, even a charter — ranked by time, cost and live traffic, with a single 'Go now' that commits to the best option without another tap.
Process
How the work got done.
01
Field research at the terminal
Spent four mornings at Tema Station and Adum Station, shadowing riders from arrival to boarding and timing every stage of the wait by hand. Combined with 30 structured interviews, this is where the three insights above — and a shortlist of 40 features riders asked for unprompted — came from.
02
Mapping a multimodal model
Most transit apps are built around a single mode. We designed an information architecture that treats bus, okada, train, taxi, van, courier, EV and charter as equal citizens of one search and one results list — then walked the model through 15 real Accra commutes to confirm it held up outside a whiteboard.
03
Wallet, queue & trust system
Designed the full visual language for queue and bay states — short, moderate, long, boarding now — alongside the wallet's top-up, tap-to-pay and scan-to-pay flows. Every state had to read in under a second, in direct midday sun, from across a station forecourt.
04
Onboarding, motion & handoff
Wrote and designed the four-screen onboarding arc that leads with the queue promise before it ever asks for an account, then simplified sign-up to a single clear action per screen. Delivered annotated specs for every state and motion curve, and sat through two QA passes with engineering ahead of launch.
Selected Screens
A closer look.
Outcomes
The work moved the numbers.
−35%
wait-anxiety, before vs. after testing
92%
completed a booking unaided
1m 50s
median time to first search
30
rider interviews behind the redesign
Troski hasn't launched yet — these numbers come from sitting down with real commuters and watching them use the prototype, not from a pitch deck. Almost everyone who tried it found their first route in under two minutes without being shown how, and more than one person said, unprompted, that just seeing the queue made the trip feel like it had already started. That reaction — relief, before they've even left the house — is the bar the team is now building toward for launch.
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