Death by Design? How I Almost Buried Ozone’s Payments Flows… and Revived Them Better
In this article, I will discuss the improvement of the payment process on the Ozone coworking space website. Specifically, I will address the following:
- What is the problem?
- What process did I follow to fix the problem?
- What solution did I propose?
- What did I learn?
Ozone: What is it and what does it do?
Ozone is a coworking space that allows people to book a desk, either daily or monthly, and enjoy additional amenities such as meeting rooms, high-speed internet, conference rooms, a kitchen, a dining hall, and more.
One of the website’s winning features is the online booking option, which allows users to select their desired plan and date, even choose their desk location from the Ozone map, and finalize their reservation with the option of online payment.
Learn more about Ozone.
What is the problem?
One of the routes on the Ozone website was the process of reserving a table and paying, where the user could select the table of their choice and finalize their reservation by paying the fee.
According to the results of a survey I conducted, about 51% of people make their reservations through the website, so it can be said that they are familiar with these types of processes.
However, the results of a survey I conducted with real website users said something else. According to the results, only 22% of our users had previously taken these routes model and this process was new to them.
On the other hand, we were going to add the wallet feature (called Ozone Card) to the website, and this would make the process more complicated. Therefore, it was necessary to review this route to create a better experience for the user.
Problem: The process of reserving and paying became more complicated
What process did I follow to fix the problem?
I sat down at my computer and started laying out the components on the page to implement the design that I had in mind. I tinkered with it a bit, and I wanted to create a new era in the payment process for the user with an innovative design and change the payment path from one side to the other.
My design was almost finished. It wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but it was good.
Now I’m looking at this design and thinking, ‘Holy shit, what a piece of garbage I made???
I called the product manager to see the design. When he saw the design, he asked, “What is this?” And I was crushed. My new design and idea were crushed. He didn’t even understand what it was?!
I explained it to him, and he understood what was going on. He said the points that came to his mind, and I took notes.
I messaged one of my friends to get his opinion as well. I thought he would understand my new and cool idea, but his reaction was also, “What is the user supposed to do here?” And boom, I exploded again.
I explained my idea to him and tried to understand his point of view on this matter.
We talked a lot, and he was able to convince me to give up my big innovation and use the best of the existing paths for my design by seeing different samples and reviewing the existing paths.
I fully reviewed the purchase process from Digikala, Alibaba, and Cinema Ticket. I took a screen recording of the whole process and took screenshots of the parts that had a lot of similarity to our model to put them side by side and review them.
What solution did I propose?
When I was reviewing the flows of other sites, I realized that most of them were solving the problems we had, and I didn’t need to design everything from scratch.
I put together the different parts of each of the paths to create a path that was right for us, and in the end, I got a path that was much better than what I had in mind.
What did I learn?
In improving this process, I learned that it is often unnecessary to reinvent the wheel. We can simply use existing wheels to create something new. We should never limit ourselves by only considering the available options. Instead, we should look at all possible options and explore them to come up with new and better ideas.
Thank you for your attention.
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