USSD is still the widest reaching financial channel on the continent. Most menus are written for the people who built them.
USSD remains the broadest financial channel in many African markets. It is also the least designed.
Menu depth is the tax
Every additional level of a USSD tree costs completion. Sessions time out, network conditions vary, and each re-entry is a chance to abandon. The single highest-yield change in most deployments is flattening the tree.
Write for reading aloud
Menu copy is frequently read out by an agent or a family member. Short, concrete, verb-first lines survive that translation. Abbreviations and internal product names do not.
Confirm in the language of money
"Confirm 2,500 to 0803…" tells the customer what they need to know. "Confirm transaction" does not.
