Ariel Hsu

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Feb 23, 2017 · 5 min read

Discovery

To assess user attitudes and interactions surrounding Venmo, I interviewed some peers about their attitudes surrounding Venmo. Many mentioned Venmo notifications and the reminder feature. I then created a survey guide to gather more specific user research surrounding that pain point.

Insights

Based on survey results, I identified some pain points within the user experience that were common among multiple interviewees. What I noticed was:

1. There is not much flexibility to choose how to receive or send payments

• Users cannot choose different bank accounts to receive and send payments
• There is no option to have incoming payments go straight to your bank account rather than the in-app Venmo balance
• Users have to complete charges in full either with a bank account or the in-app Venmo balance, and not a combination of both.

2. Venmo does not have a way to process transactions easily when the bill is not split evenly

3. Finding friends on Venmo is difficult when you do not have mutual friends and Venmo usernames are automatically generated for users

4. People expect to be paid back almost immediately (within 1–2 days) but wait around 5–7 days to follow up

5. People agreed that reminders were effective (all used in-app reminders as the first round of communication) but frequently had to resort to texts or in-person conversations for subsequent attempts

Define

Many of the insights gleaned from the user interviews pointed to two existing people problems Venmo fails to address. One is the lack of optionality in processing transactions. Although a significant issue, I did not feel comfortable designing a solution because of a scarce understanding of the backend parameters of Venmo’s financial activity .

The second issue that arose, however, was one I felt confident in addressing.

When I have outstanding charges, I want to remind my friends in a passive yet direct way so I can receive payments in a timely manner …

But I can’t do that well because:

1. Current Venmo notifications are too easily ignored and then forgotten
2. You can only send one (1) reminder notification for pending charges and then have to resort to other modes of communication to follow up
3. I have to manually send reminders to my friends, which forms a responsibility of ‘being paid back’ rather than ‘paying back’

“You can’t remind someone (to pay you back) more than once.” — Yoon J.

“I think the absence of words takes away the discomfort usually associated with asking for (payments) back.” — Sophia B.

Develop

The problem primarily lies with the notifications and the Reminder feature. I further analyzed Venmo’s Reminder notifications to hone in what works and what doesn’t.

What works!

1. Reminders do not require users to craft their own messages, making things more transactional rather than social(ly awkward)
2. Venmo is very scarce with notifications so when users receive them, they give those tasks more attention
3. Venmo notifications are simple and direct, and display all necessary information

Areas of Improvement

1. Venmo notifications look too similar to those of other apps; since Venmo notifications are relatively rare, they are easy to miss in a sea of similar-looking notifications
2. All Venmo reminder notifications are created (and treated) equal — there is no differentiation in urgency or hierarchy
3. Users have to send reminders manually — if users don’t remember, neither will their friends
4. There is only one way to send a reminder within the app

Possible Solutions

1. Reminder notifications can have a built-in hierarchy or urgency indicator
2. Users can set up automatic reminders based on when they expect or need payments back
3. Have pre-generated reminders sent via the Venmo app through more common modes of communication like Facebook Messenger or text

I chose the third solution to flesh out because users already perceive every Venmo notification as “urgent” and increasing frequency of Venmo notifications for the same task exacerbates the collective notification overflow of all apps.

Venmilli Venmilli Venmilli

Send reminder -> Reminder options (Venmo, if connected with Facebook then Facebook, Email, Text) -> Sent Confirmation -> Reminded

The flow begins on the existing Incomplete tab on the app and the Remind button. From there, Users see different options for communication platforms. Based on available information, options will be highlighted or ‘grayed out.’ Users can then choose one or multiple reminder options to send immediately. All reminders will be sent via Venmo so that reminders are disassociated from the user. Texts will also be sent from a six-digit number. A ‘Reminder Sent’ bubble will appear for confirmation. Then the button that originally said ‘Reminder’ will change to ‘Reminded’ with the icon of the communication platforms reminders were sent on. When users click on the ‘Reminded’ button, they will see a log of reminders they’ve sent associated with that pending transaction.

The solution solves part of the issue. It maintains the disassociation from the user and reaches users on more common modes of communication while still maximizing time spent within the Venmo app. Many Venmo users already connect their accounts with their Facebook profiles and enter in personal information like phone numbers and emails upon Sign-up.

An existing example of a company reaching out to users via Facebook Messenger is Everlane. Since 2015, Everlane has used Facebook Messenger as the primary mode of communication and client relationship management tool. Messages come directly from Everlane, the company, which could translate well to Venmo’s Reminder feature. Otherwise, a pre-generated message sent from your personal profile forgoes that aspect of disassociation but would still be effective.

Reflection and Conclusion

The entire process took around seven hours but a good chunk of it was spent on conducting interviews and gathering survey responses. I spent two hours ideating on this solution. In terms of how well I stepped through the process, I could have made my interview and survey questions more neutral and more flexible.

The product design solution I chose might be more novel than useful. The solution maintains key parts of Venmo that users liked regarding avoiding awkward social encounters surrounding money. The modified feature harkens back to the original people problem Venmo means to solve while also giving users another necessary reasons to use the app. I designed the solution so that users would not have to see their reminders being sent so the action is less aggressive but still direct but there is a level of trust users need to have in the feature for it to be effective or appreciated.