IA / USABILITY TESTING / USER RESEARCH
/ PROTOTYPING
Venmo Feature Set Expansion
Feature implementation, information architecture, and diving into the psychology of charity.
Financial Technology
SECTOR
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.
CHALLENGE
User research | Interviews | Wire Frames | Journey Maps | Prototyping | New Screen Layouts
CONTRIBUTION
Two Weeks
TIMELINE
RESEARCH
01
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.
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Most of our respondents do, in fact, use Venmo
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Most are open to donating to organizations using the application
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Represent a relevant demographic sample
Results
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:
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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
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Existing donation outlets often charge a fee to use
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Users don’t often have cash or checks on them with which to donate
Do You Use
Venmo?
YES
NO
Would You Donate To An Organization of Your
Choosing Using Venmo?
YES
NO
MAYBE
What Is
Your Age?
18–30
46–55
31–45
56+
Survey - Understanding the User Base
Competitive/Feature 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.
We felt that understanding the sector more in depth would be invaluable to us as we moved forward with the project.
Why Do I Care About These Transactions?
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.
Well, likely you don't
USER FLOWS
02
Having done sufficient research through interviews, a survey, and comp analysis the team decided we could move forward building personas.
We determined that two personas, with their respective flows, could capably illustrate how the feature would work.
Rory's User Flow
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).
Jennifer's User Flow
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.
JOURNEY MAPS
03
We felt Journey Mapping would be a good way to build and keep empathy at the center of our User Flows.
If cognitive load is kept to a minimum then we decrease the chance that irritation will play a part in the user's decision to donate. Charity, on the individual level, is often a matter of mood rather than imperative.
These 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..."
PROCESS
04
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.
The below app map was generated so that we could better visualize where in the app’s information architecture our new features would be integrated.
The Top-Level Donations tab app map illustrates where that feature fits in to the structure and menus.
UI 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
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.
ITERATION
05
User Testing Feedback
After completing three User tests we came away with some persistent pain points:
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
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 thee 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?