User Experience (UX) review — MyDoh, Money Management App for Parents & Kids by RBC Ventures
Opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer or any other financial institution.
As one of the target customers of the many fintech apps in Canada, here is a brief review of the user experience (UX) that I captured during the MyDoh app (Toronto, Ontario) sign-up, account activation, and registration process.
What is MyDoh?
According to the MyDoh website — Mydoh is a reloadable prepaid card for kids. Track where your children are spending, set allowances and chores, and instantly send money to your kids. Raise money-smart kids with Mydoh.
Some of the questions that I would like to ask the “MyDoh” management team —
- Could MyDoh app delay its ID verification until the parent is ready to load money on their prepaid visa card?
- Is there a way to allow the user to experience the entire MyDoh app features and benefits with minimal “Know-Your-Customer (KYC)” data or account verification?
- How many Canadian parents and kids (target customers) were recruited for user feedback and testing sessions?
- Beyond RBC’s reach or access to existing customers, what is the “moat” in the MyDoh app? E.g. could the MyDoh app compete with Wealthsimple, if they launched a similar prepaid visa for teenagers along with their autopilot savings account, cash app, and stock trading? Wealthsimple already has financial literacy features and an easy-to-use interface that Canadians love. For parents looking for long-term financial literacy for their kids, such a Wealthsimple offering could be very appealing.
- As an RBC customer, why can’t I just get the MyDoh prepaid visa card from RBC Online Banking without any user registration with MyDoh? The financial product (prepaid Visa) is offered by RBC Bank so why not remove all friction for existing customers and pre-populate all the ID & Tax Verification data. Once the prepaid visa card is issued, as part of the card activation step (which is a normal thing we all do today), MyDoh could just send me an already “verified” account activation link to download the app with a single step sign-in option.
User Experience (UX) Review —
Note — You will find MyDoh app screen images below each stage.
Stage 1 — Welcome Screens
- Kids get smarter, parents get peace of mind
- Set tasks, kids earn money
- Oversight, parents peace of mind (again)
UX Questions —
- Could all 3 messages be crafted creatively on a single page? The answer is YES.
- Should we offer “skip”? The answer is YES.
4. An Ask — Help us improve
UX Questions —
- Is this screen necessary at this stage due to recent changes by Apple or MyDoh could have delayed this “ask” after the parent loaded their kid’s card? The answer is WORTH FURTHER INVESTIGATION.
- Could it help MyDoh, if the messaging also included a benefit for the user? The answer is YES. The language used to list the benefits on this screen 4 sounds more like direct benefits to the MyDoh app but depending on the app roadmap, the team could easily elaborate a benefit for the end-user. I did not allow app tracking.
Stage 2 — Sign-up (as I’m a first time user) Screens
5. Login, Parent Sign-Up & Child Sign-Up
6. Getting started is simple with 4 steps (clearly not 4 steps as each step has further sub-steps)
7. First Name, Last Name
8. Nickname (optional)
9. Enter email (username)
10. Enter password
11. Keep me in the loop — subscribe to email communication
12. Terms of use — MyDoh app terms and conditions
13. Confirm Activation — via email, confirmation page
UX Questions —
- Could the Sign-up screen show an option for “Sign-up using your RBC account” information? The answer is YES. MyDoh offered that option later on screen 15 (ID Verification). They could have used sign-up with the RBC option now and fetched my entire information on a single page, for me to confirm, after this screen 5. This could potentially help auto-populate the information the user had to provide later from screens 15 to 23 (ID and Tax Verification).
- Would it be useful for the user to see which step they are in after this screen 6? The answer is YES, especially when 4 steps also have some sub-steps.
- Do you need my First Name & Last Name at this stage? The answer is NO. This can be part of the verification step that is fetched automatically.
- Is a nickname important at this stage? The answer is NO. Why would anyone insert an “optional” screen during sign-up? Seems like a typical junior UX designer or product manager error.
- Was the user expecting an “enter email” screen after they clicked on Parent Sign-Up on screen 5 or maybe after screen 6? The answer is YES. WOW, the user can finally enter the “Email” that MyDoh needs to let you back in the app.
- Would it be useful to have the password screen before screens 7 & 8? The answer is YES. If the first name, last name, and nickname were not required for creating the account then both email and passwords could be moved up in the flow. Especially, when the first name and last name can be confirmed during ID verification.
- Could we prompt the user to sign-up for an email subscription after they have logged into the app? The answer is YES. This could also be achieved by combining email, password and via a default checkbox for “sign me up” for exclusive offers, product updates, and marketing messages (hint: behavioral economics).
- Is it possible to sign-up the user with just a mobile number and an SMS message-based activation code? The answer is WORTH FURTHER INVESTIGATION. If the user verification step is necessary for MyDoh, then why not get the user to a stage where they can experience the app as soon as possible, then verify their identity before loading funds on the prepaid card.
Stage 3 — ID Verification Screens
14. Account Created — ID verification required
15. ID Verification — Sign Up with RBC (my pick) or Sign Up with your Government ID (didn’t try but worth exploring)
16. RBC (redirect) — Log In
17. RBC (continues) — Personal Verification Question
18. RBC (success redirect) — worth exploring the loop when a user is not successful and how they return to MyDoh for the other ID verification option.
19. ID Verification — confirm personal information
20. ID Verification — confirm address
UX Questions —
- Is it possible to delay ID Verification until the parent decides to fund the prepaid card? The answer is WORTH FURTHER INVESTIGATION. If it is possible, then a user is more likely to complete the entire process as they would have some experience with the app.
- Is it possible to combine screen 14 — ID Verification required and screen 15 — ID Verification options into a single screen? The answer is YES. I understand that the user needs to clearly understand the reason why ID Verification is required and which options they can use but the 3 sections laid out on the page are worth some A/B testing.
- Is it possible to combine the personal information and address in a single summary screen? The answer is YES. I understand that it is cleaner to split this information and a single page could become longer. But as the information is most likely coming from up-to-date banking data it may not require a lot of changes so it could be combined in a single, editable summary page (if supported by RBC APIs).
- What would be the user’s flow for MyDoh ID Verification if the information from RBC is incorrect? I did not have that issue but it is worth further investigation as it could block the user from completing the ID verification process at that time. On screen 19 it shows that the user needs to visit RBC to update their information so the user needs an option to visit that specific RBC page where they can update their information or an ability to return to screen 15 to pick the Government ID option. The easier approach would be to allow the user to update their RBC information but I understand that it might not be allowed due to various technical, data compliance reasons.
Stage 4 — Tax Verification (part of ID Verification) Screens
21. Tax Information requirements
22. Tax Information questions — 2 questions, with repeated header information
23. Tax Information questions — additional question based on question 1, with repeated header information
24. Terms & Conditions — RBC Visa Prepaid MyDoh Smart Cash Card Agreement
UX Questions —
- Is it possible to combine screens 21 and 22 (with 3 questions) into a single screen? The answer is YES. I am not sure why it has to be separate screens but it is worth an A/B test.
Stage 5 — Registration Complete Screen
25. Registration Complete — FINALLY after over 22 screens.
UX Questions —
- Is it necessary to display a single page with registration complete that requires another user click? The answer is NO. If there are no compliance reasons, then registration complete could be combined with the post-registration welcome screen. E.g. Header with a success icon —Copy: Registration completed, here is what you need to know before using the app.
Important message before we continue:
As a target customer (parent) signing up, after over 22 screens, I still do not know what the MyDoh app experience will be and how it will function. Would I really use this app? I continued as I wanted to write this article but normally I would have given up before ID verification.
Stage 6 — Welcome (again) Screens
26. Welcome to MyDoh
27. Invite Your Kids
28. Add Funds
29. Enable FaceID — useful
UX Questions —
- Could all 3 messages (screens 26, 27 & 28) be crafted creatively on a single page? The answer is YES.
- Should we offer “skip”? The answer is YES.
In Closing —
MyDoh might prove to be a useful app for kids (6–18) in Canada and I am glad RBC Ventures (with the excellent MyDoh team) is trying to target this segment of the market. I will try to use the app with my teenager and probably write more about my experience next. I would also like to add that for the Canadian market, MyDoh is probably the ONLY serious attempt that is focused on the kids so, it is very premature for RBC Venture to claim it as — THE best money management app for parents and their kids, as posted by Hector C., Head, Strategic Design, RBC Ventures at RBC. However, it would be great to post some generic metrics like other startups, e.g. how many customers have signed up, DAUs, MAUs, the amount of total funds loaded by parents, total funds spent by kids on the prepaid visa card, etc. as it will help attract new customers or evolve the product roadmap.
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