01. OVERVIEW

Venmo is a mobile payment service, popular between millennials, that enables sending money easily among friends. As a longtime Venmo user, I have been able to watch the platform grow and add various features such as credit cards, debit cards, and crypto features. However, I have always felt there were several ways the app could be improved to make the experience of using the service even better. So I decided to redesign the app and took it upon myself to look into how users use the app and feel about the experience to propose changes to the usability and UI that would improve the overall UX.

02. OUTCOME

03. RESEARCH

Interviews

During the empathy phase of my project, I conducted interviews with my target users, people between ages 18 and 34. My goal was to find out what kind of problems and frustrations they had during payment transactions, and what kind of help or assistance they needed during the activity.

I created an interview guide to facilitate the user interview process, with 10 open-ended questions to invite the participants to share their experiences and stories.

Personas

Based on the interviews, I created a persona to see this project through his lens and make decisions with his needs and goals. This helped me to identify patterns of behaviors in my target audience, which led me to highlight common pain points.

Journey Map

I created a journey map to get a better understanding of the frustrations of my target users and to find new improvement opportunities. I thought about my user, Manuel, and how he would carry out the process of starting a new payment transaction and his thought process, actions, and feelings throughout. I then identified potential areas of improvement in his user experience that I could aid, with the addition of particular features.

Competitive Analysis

After the user research, I did research on existing payment apps to find the positive and negative features of each app.​​​​​​​

The competitive analysis offered valuable insight into features that existing competitors have integrated, what they are currently offering that users enjoy, and what gaps I could potentially fill with the redesign of Venmo.

04. IDEATION

Next, I started sketching, using the Crazy Eights method. The goal here was to be completely open-minded and to come up with a variety of ideas.

05. USER FLOW

After deciding what features to include, I rebuilt the structure of Venmo using the user flow to represent the main functions of the app. The user flow helped me determine what functions and pages I would need to be designing for.

06. WIREFRAMES

Paper Wireframes

After identifying the key screens of the app, I started to draw wireframes by sketching on paper to decide which idea will work best. This process allowed me to ensure I was clear on the vision I had for the design.

I designed four wireframes for each screen of the app. Then, I selected the features I wanted to use in my refined wireframe. I repeated the same process for all the pages of the app.

Digital Wireframes

Once I had a visual direction of the layout, I started to add more details and precisions to the sketches by turning them into digital wireframes on Figma.

I started designing digital wireframes for each page, focusing on UI requirements, hierarchy, and layout. This helped me focus on the visual consistency and hierarchy before applying styles.

07. USABILITY STUDY

After I created a clickable prototype in Figma, I conducted a usability study with the potential target users in order to reveal possible usability problems and improve the functionality before spending too much time designing details.

For the usability study, I prepared a usability testing plan (including the test objectives, methodology, participant summary, tasks, and script). From the usability study, I was able to note the following key findings.

08. ITERATION

I focused on what users noted as pain points and thought of potential updates I could make to the design. I finally added three new features.

• Suggested memos

• Toggle button to get reminders before recurring payments

• Option to set a savings goal and receive alerts

09. MOCKUPS

Below showcases the UI designs I created for the new design of Venmo based on the research and information collected, while adhering to visual design principles and Gestalt Principles.

10. DESIGN SYSTEM

I created the design system to act as a guide, including iconography, colors, typography, and imagery. I continually referred back to this design system while completing the designs to ensure it was cohesive and consistent.

11. FINAL PRODUCT

After many tests and iterations, my final product aligned with all of the objectives I had set in place. It includes the three core features necessary for users to request a payment transaction, while appearing visually appealing and simple to use.

Split the bill

Split the bill with your friends and track the transactions.

Recurring payments

Option to set up recurring transactions.

Finance management

Track your spending and set savings goals.

12. NEXT STEPS

I would like to include a saving feature. An option to create savings goals with friends with the intent of giving users more motivation.

13. WHAT I LEARNED

Be open-minded

In this project, I learned to be more open to different alternatives and analyze their pros and cons. Oftentimes, design is a trade-off between multiple considerations, and the decision depends on the core needs of the user and the usage context.

Experiencing the problem is a great-first research

Dealing with the problem firsthand helped me to get my first assumptions. This also turned into a riveting exercise to empathize with what it is like to be someone who deals with online payment transactions without the firsthand interview.