CONNOR RAY COX
UX/UI DESIGNER
Venmo ‘s mission is to make the transfer of money between users as fast and easy as possible. With over 40 million users on their mobile app (the majority of them millennials), Venmo wants to add a personal finance feature into their existing app in order to grow and retain users. This is a speculative project to implement a feature using the Design Thinking Process.
Understand the goals and needs of Venmo users to develop a personal finance feature that solves those needs.
To understand the Venmo users' goals, needs and motivations as well as frustrations.
Market research was conducted to understand the industry. Focusing on Venmo's key user demographic, I examined current saving trends of Generation Z and Millennial. It became apparent that the demographic had a general distrust with traditional banks. I recognized the unique position Venmo was in as a youth-trusted FinTech app and expanded on it through additional research.
Understanding Venmo’s direct and indirect competitors was paramount in understanding common industry successes and failures. I was then able to identify methods in which Venmo could improve upon their current platform while maintaining it's brand identity.
Common themes amongst Venmo's competition
Using Nielsen and Molich’s interface guidelines, I noted prominent elements of Venmo's existing platform that may prove useful during the design build. I made note of the role of each specific elements, how it enhances Venmo's brand, and how it may lend itself to the creation of the new savings feature design.
Combining market research with my competitive analysis I created three provisional personas that established the target demographic. I then used these personas to define the specific users I would need to examine during the user research of the Define phase
User’s goals, needs, frustrations, and motivations through research synthesis.
Using the provisional personas, I recruited potential users that fit the target demographic I was designing for. I interviewed six participants by asking open-ended questions about their Venmo and saving habits. It was essential that the participants met requirements uncovered during the preliminary research.
After dissecting the interview transcripts I recognized that the participants followed common methods of expressing their thoughts; what they were thinking, doing, saying, and hearing.
After recording important participant comments I placed each note into their relative category in order to better understand my specific user. I analyzed the comments, recognized some patterns, and four user trends revealed themselves.
Common Trends DiscOVERED
After conducting the interviews I had a much more well-rounded view of who my user was. I now was able to build a user persona showcasing their goals, motivations, needs, and frustrations. Using this I could now address and discover ways to evaluate their goals and solve their needs.
Brainstorm ways to address and solve the user’s needs & goals.
POV statements and 'How Might We...' questions would be the vehicle for brainstorming.
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I conducted multiple two-minute rapid-fire ideation sessions to answer the HMW questions and generate solutions that could help solve the user's needs. How might we...
...see that saving is producing long-term results
...help the user save without sacrificing lifestyle
...aid the user's confidence they will reach financial goals
I researched Venmo and the competition through market research and built a user persona. I unearthed specific goals while conducting a breadth of user research. While addressing user goals and needs was essential, it was also important to recognize Venmo's business goals and understand that certain technical considerations would need to be made in order to uncover what feature was needed. I uncovered the new feature where the user goals, business goals and technical considerations intersected.
Now that I had uncovered a feature that my target user could benefit from using, while also further enhancing Venmo's business goals, I was able to start to understand what features were most important to include. Certain comments made during my user research seemed to coincide with features discovered during heuristic evaluation and competitive analysis. I brainstormed other potential features to include as well. I prioritized the features in order of inclusion importance.
Venmo's current platform is successful because it is clean and simple with little flash and flair. I created an app map of Venmo's current design to help me visualize and understand where Venmo Savings would fit into the current Venmo platform. I then added the savings feature where it best fit using my research, specifically my user research, as a guide.
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Launching from my Alicia persona foundation, I developed four hypothetical tasks for her to be able to complete. Using the paths on the site map, I created multiple task flows the user would follow in order to fulfill the goal of navigating an easy-to-use savings feature.
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It was also important to understand how the app would 'breathe' and react when the user would navigate. What points of contention they may encounter along the way would also prove valuable when designing the feature down the road.
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Using specific elements uncovered during the empathize, define and ideate phases, I started building low-fidelity wireframes, translating them into high-fidelity wireframes that would assist in creating a prototype to test amongst users.
Combining the heuristic evaluation discoveries and the site map helped to brainstorm potential elements that would serve the current platform and new feature design. I ran an A/B test with the same six interview participants to see which versions felt most familiar and usable.
During the research phase I discovered that familiarity and usability were essential to maintain when developing the initial sketches.
Adding a Savings tab alongside Venmo's commonly used 'NEW' stamp within the navigation sidebar was a simple first step. I then integrated Venmo's primary navigation to the top of each screen to increase familiarity.
Using the established design of Venmo's buttons and switches also allowed for user familiarity. In turn, usability was enhanced as well. However, I wanted to attempt to help the user visualize their savings methods effectively, so I sketched a Projected Savings graph in an effort to guide the user.
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I sketched additional versions of the screens in order to conduct an A/B test to see which design users would prefer. The second round of sketches were designed to better compliment Venmo's current minimalist design. I eliminated the excess information on the Current and Projected Savings screens allowing the important information, the results, to stand out amongst abundant white space.
The A/B test allowed me to see which versions proved most familiar to my users and would be the foundation as I moved forward towards a high-fidelity prototype.
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Since I now knew that familiarity was essentialI attempted to avoid potential navigation and usability issues recreating many of Venmo's current design elements in Figma; specifically icons, buttons and navigation elements.
The new elements were designed to be seamlessly integrated within the current design by matching their style and function to the existing ones from other aspects of the platform discovered during my Heuristic Evaluation.
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After discovering which sketches proved most useful I translated the low-fidelity wireframes into high-fidelity wireframes by using the elements I designed in the UI Kit.
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I built out the first versions of my high-fidelity wireframes followed by a usability test.
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I conducted a usability test in order to see what design iterations were needed most. Using that information, I improved their design by revisiting previous sketches and developing new wireframes in order to fulfill user needs and goals.
I gathered notes during six usability tests using the existing prototype. I organized them into an affinity map to help prioritize common struggles participants encountered.
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The primary pain-point uncovered was that I had given my users too much control while navigating the "complex" Projected Savings screen. The goal had actually been to simply show users what their savings would look like if they saved more. So I created new low-fi wireframes developing them into new high-fi wireframes.
Testing also showed that users had to navigate back to the Settings screen in order to add their savings balance to their checking account.
I created a "Manage Balance" link on the Savings screen that utilized an existing Venmo pattern so the user could easily accomplish this task.
I focused on the goals and needs of the user by using current Venmo design elements to make it cohesive with Venmo's branding. Understanding Venmo's existing flow better before designing low-fidelity wireframes would have prevented me from retreating to adjust my user flows and task flows.
Having research documents and low-fidelity wireframes on hand throughout the process was essential. As well as having all of my Figma files and artboards organized and labeled properly. However, I should have conducted more low-fidelity user testing to reveal issues with the Projected screen instead of developing high-fidelity wireframes that would eventually be scrapped.
This endeavor was a healthy reminder of how non-linear the design process is. I enjoyed the challenge of creating a complex feature and implementing it into an existing application.
