Venmo
CASE STUDY
MY ROLE: UX Researcher, UI Designer | DURATION: 2 Weeks
STATUS: Complete
BACKGROUND
Venmo, a popular payment transfer app, needed a feature upgrade.
With my project team, our goal in the Venmo feature redesign was to make Venmo a more streamlined experience. Currently their business model of sending money easily and efficiently was translating pretty well into actuality, but we wanted to take it one step further and smooth out any pain points users may have been experiencing.
01 DISCOVER
This is the stage where it is vital to get a grasp on the current app and see potential features for redesign. Here, we conducted a C+C analysis along with five user interviews for individuals currently using Venmo or similar payment platforms. Additionally, we looked at user reviews posted online to see what Venmo was doing right and what could be an area of opportunity.
C+C ANALYSIS
This is our C+C analysis at a much more simplified level. We started off our discover phase by looking into prevalent comps in the electronic transfer industry to see at a high-level what Venmo currently has and doesn’t have and ideas to improve upon. It was also helpful leading into researching our user base, and seeing what features attracted more users.
USER INTERVIEW TAKEAWAYS
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Users did not like the transfer fees.
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Users titled Venmo as “easy to use and navigate."
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Many users used Venmo (as opposed to other payment services) because most of their social circles who have Venmo as well.
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A few users mentioned that Cash App’s layout was easier, especially with their calculator feature when typing in the payment amount when sending a transfer.
USER REVIEWS TAKEAWAYS
User reviews were extremely beneficial in extracting pain points from actual users and helped us understand more of what Venmo users were struggling with, and as well, what they loved. We saw patterns:
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Users said Venmo was smooth and easy to use
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Users did not like how they couldn't cancel an incorrect transaction
02 DEFINE
AFFINITY MAP TAKEAWAYS
We noticed trends in our interviews of:
PERSONA
The persona was extremely helpful to look back on throughout the design process because it reminded me of the why. It turned the problem statement and “how might we statements” into an empathetic approach to finding ways to answer the question. It was vital in reminding me to focus on what would best benefit the user.
Chad
“The Meticulous Spender”
Likes saving money and investing
Age and Demographics
Male, aged 23. Based in Dallas, TX.
P2P Apps Used (Most-Least)
Zelle, Cash App, Apple Pay, Venmo
Frustrations
Chad accidentally added an extra 0 to a payment amount and his friend took a long time to respond/pay back. The current Venmo app only allowed him to remind his friend once and had to leave the app to text him, which was very inconvenient. Chad is confused why Venmo has extra features like Crypto but cannot do basic tasks like transfer without a fee instantly.
USER NEEDS
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Chad needs a way to easily notify his friends to pay him back without leaving the Venmo app.
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He also needs a way to make sure he is paying the right person and amount.
FEARS
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Paying the wrong person/amount
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Not being paid back by friends
PROBLEM STATEMENT
Chad needs to swiftly and accurately transfer money, and receive his money faster, because his lack of patience will lead him to turn to more “convenient” payment apps.
HOW MIGHT WE STATEMENTS
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How might we help Chad transfer money more swiftly so he doesn’t lose patience?
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How might we revise or edit a payment to fix or prevent user errors?
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How might we encourage better communication between Venmo users so Chad can receive money from his friends on time?
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How might we make it easier for Chad to navigate Venmo?
USER JOURNEY MAP
USER FLOW
03 DESIGN
Early ideation was to create a visually appealing app where users could send and receive money easily. We kicked off the sketches with a design studio and sketched out iterations of ideas we thought were practical to implement and worked off each others’ feedback.
FEATURE PRIORITIZATION
1. To encourage better communication between users (to help impatient users)
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Reminder redesign
2. To help users swiftly make more accurate payments
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Confirmation page + scrolling recurring reminder feature
- To help users transfer money more easily –
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Payment/Request UI
SKETCHES
Sketches helped me ideate many ways to approach the site redesign and decide which direction to go in.
LOW FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Wireframes were helpful as a stepping point to the clickable prototypes, and bridged the gap from the sketches into the prototype.
USABILITY TESTS 01
We tested if users would be able to
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Privately pay BB $10 for "gas." Then check out his profile before sending in < 45 seconds. 60% of users failed.
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Go back and edit your recipient to BJ + complete the payment in < 30 seconds. 80% of users failed.
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Find your pending requests and send Alex a one time reminder in < 10 seconds. 20% of users failed.
4. Send Alex a recurring reminder every 12 hours with your "custom" message
attached in < 20 seconds. 20% of users failed.
Our first usability test was conducted on the low-fidelity mockup above. While we did take note of some very positive qualitative results, the quantitative data unfortunately did not live up to our expectations. This is very evident if you just look at the goals we set beforehand. We had four main goals based on the four tasks that we set out for our users. The first, being to privately pay BB $10 for "gas" and check out his profile before sending in < 45 seconds. We came up with these numbers by considering the time it takes to complete the versions of these tasks in Venmo. We also had to take into account the extra cautious actions like checking BB’s profile, and that our users were using their cursor on their laptops to type, as opposed to their thumbs. We aimed for a time that would encourage accuracy and prevent mistakes, without sacrificing speed.
USABILITY TESTS 02
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Privately pay BB $10 for "gas." Then check out his profile before sending in < 45 seconds. 100% of users accomplished.
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Go back and edit your recipient to BJ + complete the payment in < 30 seconds. 100% of users accomplished.
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Find your pending requests and send Alex a one time reminder in < 10 seconds. 60% of users failed.
4. Send Alex a recurring reminder every 12 hours with your "custom" message
attached in < 20 seconds. 100% of users accomplished.
We conducted the same usability test again for our second round of testing. From the second usability tests results, it was clear that we made some phenomenal strides, in terms of our user’s quantitative and qualitative responses. You can see that our users found the pay and request section very similar to what Venmo currently has, meaning that it retained the streamlined Venmo feel. But more importantly, this second finding showed that the confirmation page would help to prevent transaction mistakes for all of our users, helping us achieve our goal in the feature redesign.
QUALITATIVE DATA
Q. How does this compare to the current set up of sending money on Venmo?
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“This is pretty similar to how Venmo is currently set up.”
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“Very similar, I don't see much of a difference.”
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“I did not notice a difference in the setup.”
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“No difference.”
Q. Would this confirmation/info page prevent you from making a payment error?
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“Yes, it would prevent me from making an error because I can quickly change the person I meant to send it to at the last second.”
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“Yes, it would.”
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“Yes, I occasionally request/send money to the wrong person, so this would add another layer of security.”
04 DELIVER
Using the information from the low fidelity and mid fidelity screens to create the high fidelity screen flows really made the project feel a lot more real. Overall it looked a lot more smooth and clean.
NEXT STEPS
Looking into the future, because we were only given this two week sprint, we have a lot of improvements to make. This would help align business and user goals, as the business would make more money from fees, and the users would send and receive their money faster.
Future developments:
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Create save common transaction feature.
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Potentially find a new home for “pending” requests.
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Functionality to edit payment or request amount and “what’s it for” from the pop up menu.
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