Tether Payments
Product
Tether bridges the gap between investment and utility for 500M+ users: a high-trust ecosystem for storing and spending funds across a global network of online and in-person merchants.
My Role
Product Designer for a core experience of iOS native app in light and dark themes: UI, UX, full RTL architecture, and Eastern Arabic numeral handling for a financial product. Worked alongside Brand, Design & Research, and Product.
One financial tool for two audiences: crypto holders and the unbanked users
The app had to serve users already holding crypto and the billions still outside the banking system at the same time.
To cater to these needs, fast onboarding and a UI that earns trust without requiring it upfront. Every flow is built for scale from day one.
Behavioral insight
First-session trust decides retention in financial apps. Users abandon wallets that feel like an obstacle before they ever fund them.
Solution
Onboarding and KYC follow fast-funnel patterns: digital wallet integration reads as a natural step, not an obstacle. The dashboard visualizes balances and token holdings with Tether-inspired clarity, and every dollar-backed payment gets a clean, data-rich detail page.
Mirroring is not RTL: the architecture was reengineered, not flipped
Beyond mirroring, the architecture was reengineered to honor the visual hierarchy Arabic readers prefer.
Numeral selection stays in the user's hands, Eastern Arabic or Latin, catering to global communities with different habits across the globe.
Behavioral insight
Arabic users judge financial credibility by numeral accuracy first. A single misrendered amount = lost trust in the entire product.
Latin digits are the hardest case: verification codes inside an RTL layout. When a field contains Latin digits on a single line, the digits render LTR within the RTL flow, aligned to the layout context: filling the available width or centered.
Typography
Noto Sans for Arabic. Adjusted line height, negative letter spacing, manually matched font weights across scripts.
Impact
10%
Arabic language users kept the app because it finally felt built for them.
500M+
Users already rely on the experience built to support their needs at scale.
Design System
A scalable variable color system unlocked the dark theme. Every component is documented for LTR and RTL, light and dark: a single source of truth for a dual-language, dual-theme product.
