Venmo Feature Expansion

Feature implementation, information architecture, and the psychology of charity.
Information Architecture
USABILITY TESTING
USER RESEARCH
PROTOTYPING
industry
Financial Technology
challenge
Venmo would like to increase engagement and loyalty through expanding beyond what it is known for, fund sharing between Users. They would like to appeal to User's desire to be socially active while understanding that some of its Users have a limited income and also that some would like to be able to make recurring payments to an organization of their choice.
contribution
User Research / User Interviews / Wire Frames / Journey Maps / Prototyping / Screen Layouts
timeline
Two Week Sprint
01
research

The team began user research with an online survey aimed at informing us about demographics and getting a general sense of how our cross-sample felt about both Venmo and donating online.
 
What we discovered is that the User base was both diverse in age and were mostly open to donating online. Further, we found validation that the new feature would be a welcomed addition.

results
•
Most of our respondents do, in fact, use Venmo  
•
Most are open to donating to organizations using the application
•
Represent a relevant demographic sample  
Survey 1 - understanding the user base
Do you use venmo?
yes
no
what is your age?
18–30
31–45
46–55
56+
Would You Donate To An Organization of Your Choosing Using Venmo?
yes
no
maybe
Competitive analysis

We knew the were other sites focused solely on giving and wanted to understand what they were doing right and how our feature would offer a competitive advantage similar features existed was a no-brainer.
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We felt that understanding the sector more in depth would be invaluable to us as we moved forward with the project.

In the allotted timeline we were able to conduct four interviews with Users who rated themselves as moderately to highly familiar with the app based on frequency of use.​From this qualitative data we took away enough of an idea to move forward with personas. What follows are some of the frustrations that were found:​

•
At the Home page with the global feed–Users had no idea who the people in the feed were or why they should care about this activity 
•
Existing donation outlets often charge a fee to use​
•
Users don’t often have cash or checks on them with which to donate
Why do I care about these transactions on my home screen between people that i don't know?

As we asked Users to explore the app with a critical eye we found one of our own questions resounding more than once: Who are all of the people and transactions in my global feed and why does Venmo facilitate "Sugar Daddies" soliciting for (mainly) girls to "take care of"? 

​Well, we had no good answer for that question but we did recognize the opportunity to replace the Global Feed icon with a far more useful one: our own Donations icon.

an image of UI feature implementation for donate button
02
user flows

After sufficient research understanding our user base we moved on building personas to have archetypes we could create User Flows around. We determined that two distinct personas would be adequate to illustrate how the feature addition would work.

We created Rory and Jennifer to represent the Users we intended to design for.

Meet rory
Rory's user flow
Rory's User Flow Prototype
This prototype exhibits Rory's user flow of paying a friend for pizza and choosing to round his payment up. The rounded up difference is donated to the charity of his choosing, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).
Meet Jennifer
jennifer's user flow
Jennifer's User Flow Prototype
Jennifer's user flow exhibits a more deliberate user of Venmo's giving feature. With her donation budget she chooses to donate $20 to an organization that promotes young women in coding. She has opened the Venmo app expressly to donate to an organization.
03
journey maps

The team felt that Journey Mapping would be a good way yo build and keep empathy at the center of our User Flows and decisions.

We hypothesized that if cognitive load was kept to a minimum then we could decrease that chance our feature would result in a negative emotional impact, and thereby increase chances of a favorable response.

Charity, on the individual level, is often a matter of mood and ease rather than an imperative.

The following Journey Maps were one of my largest contributions to the project.

"...I feel like I'm doing my part."
"I feel so good about donating money... "
04
process
i/a integration

The team analyzed Venmo’s app in depth to figure out where we could best add the new features into the existing flow.

An app map was generated so that we could better visualize where in the app’s IA our new features should be integrated.

The Top-Level Donations tab illustrates where that category fits into the existing archittecture.

prototyping
Lo-Fidelity Sketches
We began the ideation process by sketching out our ideas on paper, comparing, and articulating likes and dislikes.
The process helped us to find commonalities between sketches and identify areas that we had collectively not considered. Illuminating these areas kept us accountable to our Personas and their respective flows, making sure that we thought through each step carefully.
Once we were happy with flows we compiled everything into primary whiteboard for reference.
+
Medium-Fidelity Sketches
After composing sketches in low-fidelity we then moved on to medium-fidelity wireframes so we could begin User testing and, presumably, iterate on the designs.
05
iteration
user testing feedback
After composing sketches in low-fidelity we then moved on to medium-fidelity wireframes so we could begin User testing and, presumably, iterate on the designs.
•
One user wanted to be able to confirm her choice of organization to send the rounded up amount to prior to completing the transaction in the event that she accidentally chose the wrong one.
•
Another stated that they do not typically send money in less than whole dollar amounts and would like the option to tack on an additional whole dollar amount to donate to the organization of their choosing
•
For the sake of adhering to Rory’s flow, where he sends a dollar and change amount, the whole dollar donation amount was added to next steps.
•
Another was confused by the phrase Round-Up in the filter options on the My Donations page that allow users to view amounts that they have previously donated. This concern we addressed  as we moved into higher fidelity by making the filter button a toggle.
user testing implementation: jennifer's flow
Starting with Jennifer's flow, the more complex of the two, we made conscious decisions about the organizations to show on her Organizations Feed. We felt that Jennifer was a good candidate to promote women in the tech industry and the organization that she chose to donate to was Girls Who Code.
Jennifer's flow exhibits the set up for a recurring payment of $20/month.
user testing implementation: Rory's flow
Rory's flow exhibits the simpler flow of rounding up a dollar and change amount and donating the difference to a choice of selected organizations.
For this project the final deliverable was a working prototype. As we reviewed the work with the product manager and conversed about our process we all agreed that Venmo would increase its User base with this new feature.
To take the project further we had some unused user feedback that could take the feature's legitimacy to the next level: tracking of charitable giving for tax purposes.
The project was considered a success with many users tested as saying, "why isn't this already a feature?!". Wouldn't it be nice if, arguably, the largest fund-sharing app were to integrate some good-will into their core mission?
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