Venmo4Change
This was our first group project at GA. I was thrilled to be on a team with Michael and Chad, both exceptionally talented researchers and designers.
The aim of this project was to design a new feature for Venmo to increase the company’s brand image and to aid secure their long term sustainability as a p2p app.
The Idea:
We wanted to add a feature which would be focussed around creating a social impact — improving Venmo’s social responsibility whilst creating a media buzz around the company.
Starts with a problem
The rise of using digital mediums to pay for everyday things has lead to less and less people using cash to pay for their purchases.
How often do you still see charity change boxes in shops?
This kind of behaviour sadly isn’t happening as much anymore
As such, we are finding our pockets are not as heavily weighed down with change as they used to be. This means that charity change jars in shops are having to be emptied less regularly.
The Opportunity
Digital micro-donations. Bringing small change back into the digital age. Empowering users to take charge of where their change goes to create the most meaningful impact for them.
My idea was that Venmo could become a catalyst for social change by giving their users an option if their payments were not a whole number.
The Social Element
With Venmo’s current social sharing feature — users would be encouraged to make micro donations to a charity of their choice knowing their philanthropic nature would be shared with their friends — creating social change and re-branding Venmo as a personal tool.
The app which could impact any non profit fundraising model in a huge way.
“ With 2015 dollar volume of roughly $7.5 billion, on average, Venmo users send $300 per year.
PayPal CEO Dan Schulman has said that the the average Venmo user makes 3–4 transactions a week, or 150 to 200 transactions per year ”
We saw an opportunity to increase the brand’s image and increase the transaction volume while positively impacting the world.
Here is how.
The Process:
Two weeks to bring about change
We created a waterfall timeline of our research and design process as this project was highly focussed on time boxing and our ability to power through blocks we encountered. Our goal was to deliver a working prototype, diligently researched and thoroughly tested. Michael took the lead as PM and would regularly keep us updated on our project timeline — an indispensable tool for our lean UX journey.
Role:
It was a team effort in all areas. We were diligent about questioning each other on all aspects of the process. Bouncing ideas back and forth gave us a better understanding of each task and a clearly thought out plan of approaching each step of our process. Lean UX was our mantra.
Skills:
Market Research, Facilitation, Business Development, User Research, Strategy, Wireframing, UI Design, Branding, Prototyping.
Methods:
- Discovery & Research
- Business Development Analysis
- Sketching and Ideation
- The Design Constraints
- Prototyping and Testing
Duration:
2 Weeks
Tools:
- Sketch
- Google Forms
- Invision
- Keynotes
- SimilarWeb
Venmo — the who, the what and the why?
To understand who was using Venmo, what they were using it for and why they had the app, we created a survey on day 1 and created a competitive analysis while we waited for the results to roll in.
By examining the landscape of current p2p apps and services we gained an understanding of the features which gave Venmo its competitive advantage over similar p2p platforms.
The social aspect of Venmo is what sets it apart. An aspect we carefully considered when designing our new feature.
The Survey
I put together a survey for our group to send out on social media to everyone we knew that used Venmo; asking them to share it.
- 70% of Venmo users donate their change if there is a donation jar.
The same percentage said they would replicate this in the digital space
- 50% of users use the app at least once a week
This info allowed us to estimate and quantify the impact we could have with a donation feature.
- Users love that Venmo is quick and easy to use.
Keeping the user flow simple as possible was a huge part of our process.
- A pain point people about donating is that they wanted to know where their money was going and how the charity or non-profit allocated their funds.
So users wanted to know where their money was going! This need became a key component of Venmo 4 Change.
- People tend to donate if they’re asked to at a point of transaction.
Key Quotes during User Interviews
The Business Model Canvas
The call to Venmo HQ
We touched base with VenmoHQ in New York.
We spoke to a User Experience Designer who gave us some great insights into user behaviours and the mental models of their customers! We discovered things which helped helped us flesh out our personas.
And this!
Band Prism
This was lean UX, we had to get started on Design and test our idea.
So we got sketching. Pencil first, pixel later.
We used a massive whiteboard.
