Venmo

Adding features to help users manage their personal finances

Role: Product Designer (including research, strategy, information architecture, interaction design, UI design, user testing)

Tools: Figma, Airtable, Zoom, Whimsical

Date: February - March, 2021

Project Overview

PROBLEM

Founded in 2009, Venmo allows users to pay and request money from friends and make purchases with authorized merchants. With 60 million users, Venmo wanted to use their reach to improve the financial health of its customers and help millennials with their financial challenges. Venmo would like to round out their offerings by providing users with personalized features that allow them to manage their personal finances. Note this is a fictional project.

OBJECTIVES

This project aimed to design a new personal finance management feature that embeds within the current Venmo application and the iOS operating system, integrating smoothly with the rest of the application.

SOLUTION

New features within the Venmo application that empower customers to manage their personal finances.

Phase 1: Research

RESEARCH PLAN: OUTLINING RESEARCH

I started the project by conducting research in order to better understand the users and evaluate what my current knowledge was, as well as what I needed to uncover. To help frame my research and ensure a structure was in place, I created a research plan, which includes the goal, objectives, assumptions, methodologies, participants, questions, and timeline.

Overall, my goal when conducting research was to learn the value of a feature that enables Venmo users to manage their personal finances so that we can expand Venmo’s personal finance management capabilities.

To help frame my research and identify the most appropriate methodologies, I also outlined several objectives:

• Understand the market and trends in personal finance management and fintech
  
• Identify Venmo’s competitors and what Venmo’s differentiators are versus competitors 
  
• Understand the Venmo customer base and their needs, goals, fears, and frustrations
  
• Understand Venmo user’s sentiment towards managing their personal finances and what, if any, current methods they use
  

The research methodologies I used for this project were secondary research (including both market research and competitor analysis) as well as primary research (through a heuristic evaluation and user interviews).

Secondary research

MARKET RESEARCH: UNDERSTANDING THE P2P MARKET

I began by conducting market research, looking at broader industry trends and how consumers are behaving, to gain a better understanding of the market as a whole and help me understand the users I would need to speak with, as well as the questions to ask them, during my primary research.

I looked at four main topic areas and found:

Venmo and its growth

• In the fourth quarter of 2020, Venmo’s total payment volume grew by 60% year-on-year growth, revealing little impact from COVID-19
  
• Venmo user statistics show that approximately 28% of the participants used the service at some point in the past year 

Fintech and P2P applications

• App downloads for Square, Zelle, Venmo, and PayPal all rose by more than 50% in April and May 2020, compared with the year before
  
• 71% of consumers say they use a financial technology company such as PayPal and Venmo for payments rather than their bank or credit union

Demographics

• Millennials  have a deep antipathy to traditional financial institutions, and financial security has never been more top of mind to so many people
  
• 50% of Venmo users are between the ages 25 to 34, 33% of Venmo users are between 18 and 24
  
• 83% of millennials don’t think they’ll ever retire: they simply “don’t think they’ll have the money” to do so
  

Personal finance

• Two-thirds (65%) of Americans are now paying more attention to what they are saving and spending because of the pandemic
  
• 19% of individuals reported that over the past year, their household spent more than their income
  

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS: EXAMINING COMPETITORS

Looking at both direct and indirect competitors through a competitive analysis helps me to not only get a sense for their strengths and weaknesses but also identify potential areas where Venmo can better differentiate itself against these competitors. 

PROVISIONAL PERSONAS: IDENTIFYING THE USER

With the secondary research complete, I took insights from market research to create provisional personas, helping me identify who I should target and speak with for user interviews.

Primary research

HEURISTIC EVALUATION: LOOKING CLOSER AT THE APP

Before speaking with users, I conducted a heuristic evaluation to audit Venmo's application and understand the application’s usability practices according to the 10 usability heuristics. The heuristic evaluation helped familiarize myself with the application and its design patterns.

USER INTERVIEWS: TALKING WITH USERS

Building on my knowledge of the market, I wanted to speak with Venmo users directly to get insight into their needs, goals, fears, and frustrations. I created an interview guide to frame my interviews, focusing on the user’s experiences with Venmo and how they manage their personal finances. I conducted seven interviews (three male and four female), targeting millennials and those who use Venmo frequently. After completing the interviews, I returned to the assumptions I originally laid out in my research plan and found that:

• Venmo users are interested in the social aspect of making and requesting payments. Not validated. 4 out of 7 users did not use or enjoy the social feed.
  
• Venmo users keep track of payments through the app. Validated. 7 out of 7 users utilize Venmo to request or pay friends.
  
• Venmo users only do basic, not extensive, financial planning. Not validated. 5 out of 7 users track their finances extensively.
  
• Venmo users lack education on how to manage personal finances. Validated. 5 out of 7 users mentioned teaching themselves to manage their finances.
  
• Venmo users want their personal financial information to be secure within the app. Validated. 4 out of 7 users expressed privacy concerns.

Research Synthesis

EMPATHY MAP: DEDUCING USER INSIGHTS & NEEDS

With the user interviews complete, I created an empathy map to uncover findings from user interviews, identify patterns to prioritize focus areas, and ensure empathy with the user. This process led me to extract insights from users, which in turn helped me to define the needs of the user.

Insights

When creating a Venmo transaction, users are not sure if they’re sending their money to the right person. 

Users often don’t finalize incomplete transactions within Venmo.

Users want to better keep track of their expenses, especially larger ones, with others on Venmo. 

Users mainly use Venmo to split costs with friends.

Needs

Users need confirmation they’re creating transactions with the proper contact.                  

Users need better reminders for incomplete charges.

Users need to be able to break down their expenses within Venmo.                                          

Users need to be able to easily share payments with friends in Venmo.

USER PERSONA: UNDERSTANDING THE USER

With my findings from research, I created a user persona to get into the mind of the user and to keep the user at the forefront of my designs. I’ll introduce John, who’s been living in New York for several years. He started using Venmo in college as all of his friends began requesting money through the application. John, especially since the beginning of the pandemic, has been paying more attention to his finances recently. Throughout the remainder of the project, I kept John at the forefront of my decisions, ensuring that my designs would keep his goals, needs, fears, and frustrations in mind.

Phase 2: Define

Define & Ideate

POV STATEMENTS & HMW QUESTIONS: DEFINING THE PROBLEM

Utilizing the insights and needs derived from the empathy map, I could define the problem to focus on by outlining point of view (POV) statements and how might we (HMW) questions. This ensures I’m focusing on the problem at hand while laying the groundwork for ideation and brainstorming. Below is an example of a POV statement and HMW question I developed.

POV Statement

John needs to be able to easily share payments with friends in Venmo as he mainly uses Venmo to split costs with friends.

HMW Question

How might we help John easily share payments with friends in Venmo?

Brainstorming

INDIVIDUAL BRAINSTORM: GENERATING MY OWN SOLUTIONS

With the HMW questions outlined, I utilized these as the basis for an individual brainstorm during which, using the mindmap structure, I timed myself for three minutes to ideate on solutions for each HMW question and repeated this process twice. Brainstorming helped me think through how the new features could help a user such as John with their needs. For this project, I decided to conduct my own individual brainstorm first to generate my own solutions, and below is an example of a brainstorm for one of the HMW questions. 

GROUP BRAINSTORM: COLLABORATING WITH OTHERS

After completing my own individual brainstorm, I led a group brainstorm with three participants to generate even more solutions and see what other solutions participants may bring to the table. I conducted the group brainstorm in a similar manner to my individual brainstorm, having participants brainstorm solutions to each HMW question for three minutes. Participants then presented their ideas and discussed the solutions as a group to prioritize which ideas the participants felt were the strongest.

Strategy

PRODUCT GOALS: OUTLINING STAKEHOLDER GOALS

After brainstorming solutions to address the user’s needs, it’s also important to keep in mind the goals from a business and technical perspective, as well as the user, in order to help prioritize features and ensure they map back to the goals of all stakeholders. With the goals of the user, business, and technical team identified, I also outlined mutual goals between the groups, which helped me outline the main goal to keep in mind for all three groups: helping users effectively manage personal finances. 

PRODUCT ROADMAP: PRIORITIZING FEATURES

With the goals outlined, I compiled insights from ideation and went through each solution to develop a product roadmap, expanding on the solutions based on their relation to the product goals, level of confidence in the solution as backed by research, and the effort required to execute. Creating the product roadmap helped me prioritize the features into four categories, with the top features to move forward with first under the Must-Have (P1) category, followed by Nice To Have (P2), Surprising & Delightful (P3), and Can Come Later (P4).

After conducting this exercise, I decided to continue with adding three features to Venmo:

1. Schedule transactions
   
2. Split transactions with others
   
3. Categorize transactions

Information architecture

APPLICATION MAP: INTEGRATING NEW FEATURES

Knowing which features I prioritized to add to Venmo, I began to create an application map to understand the organizational structure of the application and identify content groupings, which helped me identify how to best integrate the new features into Venmo’s existing information architecture. Below is a piece of the full application map, highlighting the new features to be added.

Phase 3: Design

TASK & USER FLOWS: HELPING JOHN NAVIGATE VENMO

Before taking pencil to paper and sketching the design, I wanted to ensure that I was keeping our user, John, in mind and his primary goals. I began by creating a UI Requirements document to understand all of the screens and interactions needed to add features to Venmo, as well as the tasks he would complete while navigating the application. 

I then created four task flows to help John complete his primary tasks with the addition of these new features. This helped me be more specific in identifying how John would complete each task, identifying the screens and actions needed. Below is one of the task flows, specifically for John to easily figure out how much each of his friends owes him after going out to a restaurant for a meal so that he can get paid.

To further expand the task flows, I outlined the user flow to better see how a user may navigate the application and the new features added, as well as what steps they will need to take for each scenario. The user flow expanded upon the task flows and includes any decisions John would make as he utilizes the new features. Below is a piece of the full user flow, specifically for John to get paid back and figure out how much each person owes him after paying for a meal with his friends.

SKETCHES: TAKING PEN TO PAPER

With the flows outlined, I began sketching out the necessary pages I’d need to help John complete the tasks outlined. Sketching enables me to begin to visualize how the new features will be integrated into the Venmo application and what they will look like before I begin outlining the details in a design tool.

HIGH FIDELITY WIREFRAMES: ADDING VISUAL DETAILS TO THE DESIGN

Once I had a sense for how the pages should be laid out, I took to Figma and began creating high fidelity wireframes to refine the visual details and hierarchy. I integrated findings from my research as well as utilized existing design patterns found across Venmo to seamlessly integrate the new features. I created my wireframes from the ground up, enabling me to better understand the application and its style.

Phase 4: Test

PROTOTYPE & USABILITY TESTS: MIRRORING THE VENMO APP

With the high fidelity wireframes complete, I created a prototype to connect the screens together as if they were the Venmo application itself. The prototype then enabled me to test the screens with users and understand what worked well, or could be improved upon, in the design. 

Before reaching out to usability test participants, I outlined a usability test plan in order to highlight the objectives and process for testing the prototype with users, including the script and scenarios for each test. I conducted usability tests with five participants and noted any errors they made, whether a slip or mistake, while they took the test. The completion rate was 100% and the error-free rate was 95.8%.

AFFINITY MAP: SUMMARIZING USER FEEDBACK

The affinity map below shows the results and highlights common themes from the usability tests. With comments noted for each participant by color, I grouped common feedback together to uncover patterns and insights for each pattern.

For each insight, I developed a recommendation and prioritized the recommendations based on impact and level of effort required to execute. I've included examples of insights and recommendations I developed below.

Insights

Participants had difficulty using the scheduling dropdowns, particularly for using the calendar to identify start and end periods

Participants were unsure of what splitting “by amount” means and how it allows them to  divide a bill with others

Recommendations

Add signifiers such as arrows and color to better show when an item is selected

Exchange 1.01 with a different visual symbol and add instructions to clarify each split option

STYLE GUIDE: REPRESENTING VENMO'S STYLE

Understanding Venmo’s existing style was imperative to be able to seamlessly integrate the new features into the application. By creating the style guide, which includes the logo, color, typography, and imagery, I was able to better understand Venmo’s brand and its attributes, which I defined as fun, simple, social, energetic, bold, and trustworthy.

UI KIT: MAINTAINING CONSISTENCY

With the style guide complete, I also outlined the UI Kit for Venmo to integrate the new features into Venmo’s existing user interface and ensure that a consistent design is maintained throughout the application. The document will change as the design is refined and any interactions will be reflected in the UI Kit.

REVISIONS: ITERATING ON THE DESIGN

Taking into account feedback from users and stakeholders, I prioritized revisions to the design to improve the usability of the new features within Venmo. Below are a few of the revisions I made:

Adjusted the schedule feature, adding arrows and creating separate screens for each line item, to prompt the user when a line item is selected

Replaced 1.01 with a different visual symbol to represent splitting by amount and added a description to clarify each split option being presented

FINAL PROTOTYPE: COMPLETING THE PROJECT

Now that the revisions were implemented, I could finalize the prototype, allowing me to complete the wireframes with feedback incorporated.

Takeaways

Financial literacy: Financial literacy among millennials is still lacking, and this project highlighted to me how much self education people have to do in order to learn how to manage their finances. This is something I’ve been passionate about for some time, and I was thrilled to be able to see how I can help people accomplish their personal finance goals.

Product design: It was a challenge to work within Venmo’s existing design system, especially since this was a fictional project where I wasn’t working directly with the Venmo team. I was excited by this challenge and the opportunity to learn more about working within constraints and with an existing product.

Scope creep: Keeping within the scope of the project proved to be difficult at points as there were so many ideas that came up during ideation! However, it’s important to manage expectations with stakeholders and ensure I’m staying within the scope outlined at the beginning of the project.

Next Steps

For immediate next steps, I would compile all of my design files, as well as any helpful instructions or tips, and hand off the designs to developers through Zeplin for development. In regards to the design, I would also explore designing the nice to have features that were identified in the product roadmap.

Let's connect!

I'd love to chat with you.