Venmo:
Adding a scheduled payment feature
Project Overview:
The objective: Venmo is a mobile payment application that is owned by PayPal. It can be used for both social transactions as well as merchant/customer transactions. There is no cost to send or request money from a linked bank account or debit card, and a 3% fee from a credit card. There are additional fees for seller transactions, instant transfers, and cryptocurrency transactions.
While using my own Venmo app to set up a monthly recurring payment, I realized (and later confirmed via Google) that this was not a capability that Venmo currently offers. It is, however, possible to schedule payments and payment requests in other mobile payment apps such as Paypal and Zelle. As a result, I decided to research and design a scheduled payment feature that would work on the existing Venmo app.
I was the sole UX/UI designer and the project took 80 hours.
Research
Research Goal: We want to understand how users interact with the Venmo application and how to design a scheduled payment feature that will meet the users’ needs.
Market Research
I began by researching the market around mobile payment apps. A few facts in particular stood out to me as relevant to the project:
“50 percent of [Venmo] users are between the ages 25 to 34, and 33 percent are between the ages 18 to 24.” [Source]
“A report released last year from TIAA Institute shows that only 16% of millennials could answer all three questions from a basic financial literacy test.” [Source]
“A quarter of Americans pay their bills late and the top reason—cited by 61% of late payers in one survey—is that they simply forgot. The No. 3 reason is they lost the bill and No. 5 is that they procrastinated past the due date.” [Source]
Millennials increased their credit scores more than any other generation in 2020. One of the factors included in this is making payments on time via autopay. [Source]
Competitive Research
Compiling a list of competitors was relatively simple; there’s a list of about ten mobile/online payment and banking apps, and I selected three that have similar functions to Venmo. I’m including Venmo in this comparison for reference.
User Survey & Interviews
In anticipation of my user interviews, I wanted a better feel of why users prefer certain mobile payment apps over others. 27 total participants filled out a survey in which I asked questions touching on what apps they use, which one they prefer (and why), and their preferences when setting up scheduled payments elsewhere.
85% of participants have used Venmo at some point.
40.7% of users prefer Venmo; 22.2% prefer Paypal; 18.5% prefer Apple Pay; and 14.8% prefer Zelle.
60% of participants most often schedule recurring payments monthly, on a certain date.
If Venmo were to add a recurring payment capability, the top four most important features would be as follows:
1. Notification reminders that your payment is about to be initiated
2. No fees
3. Cancellation flexibility
4: Scheduling flexibility
Most common words used when participants described why they prefer each method:
Venmo: Familiar, friends, easy, fun, simple, social network
Paypal: Safe, fraud protection, record, credit card, businesses
Apple Pay: Easy, online shopping, automatic, international
Zelle: Fastest, familiar, easy, small businesses
Interview participant criteria: Individuals who use mobile banking apps and ideally have scheduled transactions at some point. Between the ages of 27 and 37.
I interviewed three people over Zoom and in person, and they showed varying amounts of interest in the idea of scheduled payments in general.
The user who was most excited by the idea of scheduled Venmo payments, Mitch G., is not comfortable with money management, an avid Venmo user, and splits a lot of bills each month, resulting in many manual transactions.
From the initial trio of interviews, I hypothesized that the users who would enjoy and use this feature will not be confident with their finances, will most likely live in a city where they need to split a lot of bills with other individuals, and will already be a Venmo user.
Define
Persona Development & Empathy Mapping
My fictional persona, Emily, was based off of both my user interviews as well as my market research. I used Emily to create an empathy map and, later, a user flow, in which I highlight the steps she would take to schedule a recurring payment on Venmo.
Click images to view in more detail.Task Flow
I brainstormed the steps that this task would require, and then verified that I hadn’t missed anything by looking at several other apps which incorporate scheduled payments.
User Flow
Broken down into actions and decisions, the user flow follows Emily paying her partner her monthly portion of their shared car payments, scheduled for the same date each month.
App Map
I created an app map of the current Venmo app (as of September 2021) and decided on the locations of the new features.
Design
Sketched Wireframes
It was while I sketched these wireframes that I was able to pinpoint the issue with the design I had in my mind. After clicking on the calendar icon (frame 4), I have the scheduled information appear towards the top of the screen. This would make the user have to look down and then back up…and what would happen to the description area? I realized I needed to have this information live in a popup from the bottom, similar to what happens when a user edits their privacy settings for the payment.
App UI
Working with an existing interfaces, with the brand colors, fonts, and styles already in place, is both helpful but also a bit tricky. It’s imperative that the designs blend seamlessly with the app’s existing UI. I was able to pretty easily source the brand colors, fonts, and logos, and for the new designs I was careful to mimic the UI styles that currently exist.
Below are just a few of the screens I designed for prototype testing:
Test
Prototype & Usability Testing
Test Objective: To evaluate whether the design and location of a scheduled payment feature meets the users’ needs.
Test Goals:
Schedule a recurring payment
Request a scheduled one-time payment
Delete a scheduled transaction
Test Methodology
Conducted via Maze, a remote testing platform, linked to my Figma prototype (above). 21 participants completed the Maze testing.
Findings:
I had a great mixture of participants who successfully completed the prototype missions and those who were confused, which was incredibly informative. I looked through the results and noted the confusion that was caused by prototype deficiencies, the confusion that was caused by the current Venmo interface (areas that I didn’t touch) and was able to extract some good suggestions for improvements.
Priority Revisions & Conclusion
For the initial round of revisions, I focused mainly on improving navigational layout. One of my prototype participants made a suggestion that I took directly: to add a “done” button to each part of the scheduling feature, so the user does not need to hit the back arrow in the top left when they’re finished editing every section. I also replaced the delete icon and text with an actual delete button, matching the shape and style of other app CTAs as well as making the action a bit easier for the user to spot.
Lastly, I improved the realism of the prototype and allowed for more interaction. Several prototype participants pointed out that they were struggling to complete a mission once they made a mistake because they couldn’t go back easily enough. Some of this confusion was a result of the prototype, and some of it was because of the existing layout of the Venmo site.
In the future, I would run another round of testing with this improved prototype to verify the next improvements, like adding informative popups, notifications, and general information architecture of the app (especially where previous transactions live and what information shows up on your own personal profile page). I would also inform Venmo of the feedback I received around app slowness and glitches.