A Conversation with Oluwasanya Taiwo Ruth on Building Products That Resonate with Users
A form of innovation driven by empathy rather than dashboard metrics alone is a distinctive and remarkable perspective that she had brought to the field of product marketing. Her methodology combines technical discipline with genuine human concern, this is shaped by her journey from Nigeria to the UK and across FMCG, streaming services, and financial services.
I sat down with Oluwasanya Taiwo Ruth to understand how she balances security requirements with emotional engagement, captures user sentiment in real-time, and why she believes the most impactful products fuse engineering prowess with emotional involvement.
What are some of the product design lessons you have learned in designing consumer goods and streaming as well as financial services that you have applied to fintech to make sure offerings truly resonate with users?
One of the biggest lessons I’ve taken from consumer goods and streaming is that people gravitate toward products that reduce friction and make decisions feel effortless. In consumer goods, simplicity drives adoption; in streaming, it’s about instant clarity, users expect to understand what they can do within seconds. I bring that same mindset to fintech by making sure the core value of a feature is immediately visible, and that the path to taking action is as short as possible.
Another key lesson is that emotional trust is just as important as functional value. With streaming, users trust that when they hit play, the content will be there. With financial services, that trust takes on added weight because it involves people’s money. So I’ve learned to design for reassurance: clear language, predictable behaviors, and contextual signals that reinforce security and transparency. This has proven essential in helping fintech users feel confident enough to try new tools or shift financial behaviors.
From consumer goods, I also learned the importance of leaning into real-life use cases rather than abstract features. People don’t buy products; they buy outcomes. In fintech, that means illustrating how a feature helps someone save time, avoid fees, build habits, or reduce anxiety. Translating benefits into everyday scenarios ensures the experience feels practical, not technical.
How can you balance incompatible technical requirements of security, scalability, and compliance against emotional engagement that drives loyalty?
Since day one, our security, UX, and development teams adopted security-by-design, incorporating interconnected end-to-end encryption and robust data protection into every release pipeline, and UX design workstreams created micro-moments to provide moments of reassurance. You know, like that subtle success animation after a bill payment or budget milestone. Are you aware that a company that is a leader in customer experience can achieve more revenue growth than its peers, and I have seen that when users feel safe and appreciated, they can experiment with more advanced features instead of leaving the app.
Real-time feedback loops have been said to be essential. Can you tell me about your processes of capturing and utilizing user sentiment throughout the early product life cycles?
We’re working on a rollout where users are asked to submit a one-tap satisfaction rating with an optional text field after initial usage or after key interactions. Those inputs would feed a live dashboard tracked by product and engineering leads, allowing us to identify friction points quickly. In a previous project, this approach helped us spot a confusing button label that was driving a spike in errors within two days. We corrected it and watched error rates revert to baseline, an agility that reassured users we were listening and acting.
Digital socialization can strengthen the process of community building. What have offline brand communities taught you that applies to fintech platforms?
In many cases FMCG brands have ambassadors to sell products in the markets. What this means is that we can do this by providing a virtual product council of power users who would have early access to new features and video workshops each month. A community-driven development can also increase the adoption rates of our products, and our council members would become our most credible spokespeople, telling genuine experiences that attracted more referrals than any paid cycle.
So as a final question, I want to go back to your frontline experience and ask, what is the guiding principle that you could provide to fintech teams developing products to fit in our digital world?
The guiding principle is simple: pair strong technical discipline with genuine concern for real users. Fintech products must be designed with the practical financial challenges of target users in mind. When performance is seamless and communication feels human, users quickly become loyal advocates.
This was clear during Spendify’s virtual unveiling across Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and the diaspora, where we showed how the platform helps people move from manual records to organised, digital financial management. In that balance of engineering clarity and human insight lies the core of products that truly make a difference.
About Oluwasanya Taiwo Ruth
Oluwasanya Taiwo Ruth is a product marketing strategist and author with over a decade of experience across FMCG, streaming, and fintech. Currently at Spendify, she’s a CIM member and graduate of the Forward programme. She’s the author of The Ad Man Guide and holds an MSc in Advertising and Marketing from The University of Hull, UK.