UXDI Project 2 Adding new feature to Venmo App

Nattakarn Osborne
Jul 24, 2017 · 9 min read

Here comes the second project for UXDI course. This is my first group project, while other groups had three people, our group had to split tasks between 2 of us. There was a lot of work, but it is a great opportunity to learn. We were assigned the task to add a new option for social impact into the Venmo app.
What We have to deliver

In this project, we had to introduce a way for users to send money via their app to the social cause they care about. Find the way to encourage a Venmo user to give back. We had to design a user flow of browser/search and donating money.

I heard about Venmo a while back when I went to several tech meet ups but never used Venmo personally. First thing I did was download the app on my phone and explore it. Later that day to get better insights I convinced my friend who is also a first time user to go out for dinner with me so we can “Venmo” each other. I found it is a very convenient way of peer-to-peer payment. The most insight I got was fun transaction using emoji. It is a nice way to ask someone to pay back without the awkwardness.

Problem
The main problem is when it comes to giving money to charity, the current situation is the lack of trust and accessibility to social organizations.

A Project Plan

Back to a project brief, we started with researching the company’s background on the first day. We learned about other competitors and charity organizations.
We compared Venmo and Social act and realized that Venmo’s functions are centered around earning or giving money. Social good act, on the other hand, is centered around the idea of donating. Venmo is transparent, and users can see their payment history but on the good social people often don’t know where the money is going.

To start a project, we decided to follow a class lecture and use the methods we learn. I am so glad we learned about time box technique from the first project. This time we were very successful in time management with this project. Every step was on the due date as we plan. Unfortunately, I spent three days at the hospital but thanks to technology it easy to keep everyone in the loop. In the end, I did not turn into Spider-woman and survived. Well, still a hospital bed is not the way I prefer to learn how to work remotely, but the project must go on, and our team finally rock it!

A Design Process

We have applied the key principle of the double diamond design process. Started off with identifying a key problem though user interview. It was quite challenging because we dived into user interviews before user screening. We learned a lesson not to waste our time with a wrong target user.

However, received a lot of useful feedback from a survey question we sent out using google form.

We recruited people who use at least one online transaction platform and felt secure using them. We also asked them specifically how they usually hear about the social transaction.

The Journey of the user

Users tend to segment their experience in three part: before donating, the conversion point to donating and expectation after donating.

So we looked at the affinity map and identified our interviewees as an early adopter of technology and product. Some people value high privacy while some are low on privacy. We took the information to create a primary and secondary persona.

Sketching Wireframes

I learned a big lesson in this step. Due to a time concern, I jumped from a rough sketch into hi-fidelity wireframe before detail wireframe annotation. That was a reason why we had to do multiple iterations.I realized in the real world project we are going to work in a waterfall process everything must follow step by step. However, I added it on later after a presentation.

User Testing Lab

We set a user testing lab in class. We documented three people testing out the app. The testing lab in the class room crew, so we set it up in a small corner make sure our tester felt comfortable enough.

Scenario

Since we introduced a new feature for user to use points they earned to donate, we had to give a little bit of explanation.
The concept is that our primary user already makes most of their activities public on the feed. So we wanted to take advantage of this aspect and allowed them to earn points each time they make an activity public. This way we are encouraging people to share.
The points they earn can be used to donate to a charity of their choice. These points can only be used for charity and cannot be converted into their venmo balance. Below is the flow of Venmo point system:

For the first scenario, we asked our tester to be our primary user Lawrence, a person who loves to share their activity and keep up with the deed on Venmo. He already had an existing account on Venmo. The goal of the testing is:

1. Search for a charity that saves animals
2. Use your points to donate and receive confirmation of your contribution
3. Share activity on social media.

Following is Lawrence’s user flow we expect:

We also printed out the scenario so our user could refer to goals when they need to.

Outside the lab, we had 15 user tests who helped us improve our prototype bit by bit.
You are welcome to check our current prototype in Invision here:

Iterations

I was too excited to use InVision to create an interactive prototype. I wasn’t worried too much about Sketch. I watched a few tutorials and created a few mobile apps while waiting to be admitted to GA. It didn’t take me long to design the first version. It will be a pain if I have to use Adobe Photoshop. Anyway still cause approximately two nights of sleep — Haha. However, I mentioned earlier about skipping detail wireframe process. This mistake is why we have multiple iterations. I learned not to make this mistake again. Below are our screens:

Home Screen

This is the Home Screen. From our research, we noted that people needed to feel inspired before they donate, so that is the reason the image is larger than expected here. In the original prototype users did not know which organization was featured, so we added a logo to the progression bar.

User Feed

In the User Feed Screen, we observed that 4 out of 4 users were tapping on the settings icon to search for a donation icon and they were unsure of what “check my piggy bank” meant. So we changed the label to “points for charity” to make it more obvious what the piggy bank represented. Since the piggy bank is a new feature, we wanted to introduce to it in many areas so it can be accessed from two different points: the settings bar and the user feed.

Donation Screen

We spend time searching for 🐶 pictures end up using my dog pictures from 5 years ago. Let’s get back to donation screen! Here, users noted that the “pick your charity” button was not needed because she had already picked her charity organization to get to this point. We removed a button from a screen and made the other button look more clickable.

Donation Points

This step is the donation points screen. The first version on the left has a piggy bank and Venmo balance bar. We got an idea for a piggy bank from our user Interview. Most of our Interviewees including me keeping loose change in a jar and did not pay attention to it. One person said one time she opened her kid piggy bank she discovered that they had 200 dollars in it. That how we come with the idea that even a small cause can contribute in a big way.
In the design tried to fit a concept in this screen, but through observations, we realized that the screen was too cluttered. So we listened to our users and removed the bar. Also, there is an information icon for users who want to know details of the points conversion.

Emoji Screen

This emoji is confirmation that his point being transferred. This screen is my favorite screen inspired by hip-hop music VDO. 💵 We used the emojis because they are essential to Venmo’s character and adds a surprise experience.

Notification

This screen is the notification that a user would receive just a few minutes after they donate. When shown the screen on the left, users noted that there was no way back to the Venmo, which hindered his ability to share this activity. Another user pointed out that she still wonders where her contribution went. So in the third iteration, we added a photo how the money is helping a cause- so in this case, it is a stray cat. There is also a link to encourage someone to share.

Next Step

For future considerations, we would integrate our secondary user, Theo into the prototype, continue to re-test the methods of sharing donations with Venmo balance focus on user privacy and keep Venmo’s social good feature aligned with any changes with the brand.