Raha app redesign | Mohamed Elabbasy

The challenge

Raha is an established domestic labor platform in Saudi Arabia. As the product grew, fragmented flows and accumulated complexity made everyday tasks harder. I led an end-to-end redesign, connecting user research, business priorities, and a new design system.

Leading the process

I owned UX strategy, UI direction, and the design system from research to handoff. I worked with product, engineering, and business stakeholders, while mentoring a junior designer and a UX writer.

12Stakeholder meetings

5Business ideation workshops

20+Personalized home states

Research combined desk research, customer support ticket analysis, competitive analysis, user interviews, and heuristic evaluation. Five stakeholder workshops, eight internal sessions, and five one-on-one sessions turned the findings into product decisions.

Design decisions

A simpler start

Replaced high-friction sign-in with a mobile number and OTP. Removed ID and unnecessary fields, then added walkthroughs, contextual hints, and on-demand guidance.

A home that understands context

Designed more than 20 home states around active tracking, upcoming visits, workers at home, invoices, offers, and user status.

More reasons to return

Created Silver, Gold, and Platinum loyalty tiers, rewards and bundles. Gifting became a dedicated journey with personalized messages and real family support scenarios.

Booking with confidence

Removed a countdown that caused stress and booking mistakes. Rich worker profiles introduced photos, video, skills, and experience before arrival.

Help that is easy to find

Gave the AI chatbot a recognizable identity, made it available throughout the app, and added quick access to human support.

Raha app redesign - Home Page (Core Experience) - after — Home Page (Core Experience)

The outcome

The redesign creates a foundation for clearer onboarding, more relevant actions, repeat usage, and trust before booking. Next steps include usability testing, iteration, design handoff, and implementation.

Explore the research, individual flows, and rationale behind each improvement in the project notes below.

Explore the details

Go deeper into the research, design rationale, and complete interface explorations.

Read the complete project notes

Overview

When I joined SMASCO, Raha was already an established domestic labor app in Saudi Arabia. However, scale alone doesn’t guarantee a great experience. Over time, the product accumulated usability issues, fragmented flows, and growing complexity that no longer matched users’ expectations or business ambitions.

The challenge wasn’t just to improve the existing app - it was to rethink the entire experience while keeping millions of active users in mind.

My Role

Product Design Lead

Led the end-to-end design process from research to handoff

Owned UX strategy, UI direction, and design system creation

Led ideation with stakeholders and internal teams

Mentored a junior designer and a UX writer

Worked closely with product, engineering, and business teams

Understanding the Business First

Before designing anything, I focused on understanding the business context.

I conducted 12 in-depth meetings with Raha stakeholders, including product owners and leadership, to align on:

Business goals and KPIs

Operational constraints

Growth challenges

Known user complaints and risks

This step helped frame the redesign as a business-driven UX initiative, not just a visual upgrade.

Researching at Scale

With clear business objectives in place, I led a comprehensive research phase to uncover real user problems.

We combined multiple research methods:

Desk research to understand the market and domain

CX ticket analysis to identify recurring user frustrations

Competitive analysis to benchmark industry standards

User interviews to capture real behaviors and expectations

Heuristic evaluation to expose usability and accessibility issues

By the end of this phase, we had a clear understanding of what was broken, why users struggled,

and what they actually needed.

Turning Problems into Ideas

To transform insights into solutions, I facilitated a structured ideation process involving all key stakeholders.

5 ideation workshops with business stakeholders

8 internal ideation sessions with the design team

5 one-on-one ideation sessions for deep problem-solving

This approach ensured alignment between user needs, business goals, and technical feasibility.

Sign In & Authentication

Problem: High friction during login.

What I did

Simplified sign-in to mobile number + OTP only

Removed ID and unnecessary fields

Followed global conversion best practices

Impact

Higher conversion rate

Faster onboarding

Lower drop-off at entry point

Interface Guidance

Goal: Help users without overwhelming them

Proactive help:

Intro walkthroughs

Contextual hints (pull revelations)

Reactive help:

On-demand guidance

Troubleshooting tips

Impact:

Better feature discovery

Reduced confusion early on

Home Page (Core Experience)

Problem:

Old home page was rigid and ad-focused

Same layout for all users regardless of their state

Solution:

Designed a fully personalized & flexible home page

Home content adapts based on:

Active tracking

Upcoming visits

Existing worker at home

Invoices

Flash sales

User status

Designed 20+ different home page states

Faster access to relevant actions

Strong personalization signal

Higher engagement

Gamification & Loyalty Program

Goal: Increase retention & repeat usage

What I built

Full loyalty system:

Silver / Gold / Platinum tiers

Reward-based motivation

Scarcity mechanics:

Limited offers

Bundle offers:

Buy 3 visits → get 1 free

Stronger emotional attachment

Increased repeat orders

Higher user retention

Gifting Experience

Gifting was hidden and unclear

Treated as a secondary action after booking

Designed gifting as a standalone product

Dedicated gifting flow

Real-life scenarios:

Monthly worker as a gift

Family support use cases

Personalized gifting messages

New engagement channel

Higher gifting adoption

Single Visit Booking Flow

Problem

Countdown timer caused stress

Users booked wrong dates by mistake

Solution

Removed the timer completely

Smoothed the booking flow

Allowed users to choose calmly

Fewer booking mistakes

Reduced support complaints

Muqeemah Contract - Trust Building

High worker replacement rate

Users shocked by worker appearance after arrival

Insights:

From user interviews & CX tickets:

Lack of familiarity

Low trust before arrival

Rich worker profiles:

Multiple photos

Videos

Clear skills & experience

Focused on making the worker familiar before arrival

Increased trust

Reduced replacement requests

AI Help & Customer Support

AI chatbot existed but was underused

Hard to access support quickly

Redesigned AI chatbot visual identity

Made it clearly recognizable as AI

Available across all app screens

Quick access to human agents

Faster problem resolution

Better support experience

Lower frustration

This wasn’t about making Raha look better. It was about making a complex, high-impact service easier, clearer, and more trustworthy for millions of users.