Mobile Payments
Applied design thinking methodologies to uncover unique value propositions.
THE PROBLEM
A large financial company wanted to get into the game of mobile payments. This came at a time when Square led the US mobile payments space. The assignment was to identify a product feature set that appealed to small business owners.
A large financial company engaged boutique design firm in San Francisco to help them create a competitive mobile payment ecosystem.​ The ecosystem included both a consumer and merchant mobile app. In my role as Lead User Researcher, my focus was both strategic and highly tactical. The project implemented design thinking with 2-3 week agile sprints.
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The study began with discovery research involving in-depth interviews aimed at understanding consumer and merchant needs. A large focus of discovery was to gain a deep understanding and empathy for each segment and potentially get to the point of personas.
HIGH LEVEL TIMELINE
Timeline was open-ended to some degree. Each 2 week sprint ended with a strategy session to adjust and map out the following sprint(s).
MAKE OF THE TEAM
UX Director, 1-2 Research Leads, and a UX Designer.
MY ROLE
As Research Lead, my focus was on all aspects of research: methods, recruitment, moderation, and research summaries as well as relevant UX design.
CONCEPT TESTING & DEFINITION
About half-way through the project we hit a major roadblock - our recruiting firm was unable to find enough small businesses for our testing purposes. That's when I hit the pavement.
In order to meet our merchant participant numbers, and also find micro-businesses we all got creative with recruitment. We recruited merchants at artist markets, food truck parks, coffee shops, and through internet media posts.
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Between testing sessions, all observers participated in the creation of empathy maps. Empathy maps delineate what a user SAYS, DOES, THINKS, and FEELS.
What a user DOES is often incongruous with what they SAY or FEEL.
Opportunities for innovative design exist in between what people DO and SAY, and what people FEEL and DO.
“I am an artist at heart and want to be focused on creating” and “I think I should be spending more time managing my business and doing marketing”
Artists FEEL that they want to create, but THINK they should be managing their business better. The opportunity for the product is to help artists manage their business and free up their time to create.
THE OUTCOME
Small business owners have emotional ties to their banking and payment applications.
The opportunity to crack into a crowded payment space would have to come through a unique differentiator. Throughout the second phase of concept ideation, the team focused on tactical ways to help small business owners manage their business and improve customer loyalty.
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These features included:
1. Real time notification on sales and profit margins
2. The ability to drill down and view high-yield items in order to plan for shortages.
3. The ability to schedule coupons based on business growth
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TITLE OF THE CALLOUT BLOCK
LESSONS LEARNED
The iterative design testing approach generates tactical insights.
Design research in the initial phases of a project allows us to understand our users' behavior and generates empathy. This research uncovers the context of use - what, where, how and why something happens. It also allows us to understand current sentiments toward existing solutions.
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