User Research
The main focus for implementing the donation feature in Venmo was how to display and categorize donation capabilities based upon how our user research reflected a substantial level of diversity in the user demographic that we were designing for.
Surveys and Analysis
My team began by constructing a survey to understand user habits in regards to social media and e-payment (Venmo’s two core themes) to weed out key users for interviews and further research to develop personas. We also performed competitive and comparative analysis in order to understand the features that could be considered common conventions for donation platforms and social media.
We began with a survey via surveymonkey.com
How users spend money online.
Comparative analysis of products with similar features.
Concept Mapping
We utilized concept maps and card sorting to establish overlapping trends between users as a starting point for personas. This wound up being a valuable series of exercises when it cam to establishing a solution hypothesis at the beginning of the design phase.
User Flows and Site Map
I created user flows for our personas based around utilizing our new design features, such a new donation feed and search bar embedded in the feed. This guided us to understand where to put the donation feature within the current interface. I also created a site map for Venmo’s current interface along with our added features built into the landing page and settings page to gain a better understanding of the content hierarchy.
User flow doc for crowdfund search.
Seeing how adding the donation feature would affect the app's site map.
User Interviews
We interviewed key users in order to identify common behaviors in regards to social media and e-payment applications through identifying user pains points, pleasures, contexts and behaviors. This ensured that we would build proper personas that encompassed real users. Are personas were the high level charity donor who feels like there is a morale responsibility to donate, the 'Kickshopper' who browses crowdfunding sites almost as a source of entertainment and the social media star who donates occasionally but feels the need to spread the word on site like Facebook and Twitter to inform others on the given cause.
Solution Hypothesis
A solution hypothesis is a great way to summarize what you are doing. It is easy to get lost in the weeds during the lifecycle of a project and having a meeting to create a centralized goal kept us on track throughout the design spring. We realized that the initial scope of the project began changing due to the clear demographic distinction between users who donating to charities and users who only contributed to crowdfunding projects.
““If we provide a structure that differentiates between causes and people on Venmo, then we can provide more efficient searching capabilities because users want to browse and search for causes.”
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Design
The design phase of this project encompassed over 50 wireframes at medium-high fidelity. Because we were designing for a feature within an existing app, we focused on copy, iconography and user flows rather then spending lots of time on aesthetic refinement. You can view the marvel prototype here or browse some selected screens below.
Inserted a delete button for crowdfunding projects that are past their time limit. Users didn't correlate "expired" with crowdfunding so we made the copy more literal.
'Cause" best encompassed both charities and crowdfunding projects. Added 'Top Causes' to the pay/request screen and to the search bar.
Added a search just for Causes and aa listing of 'My Causes' to keep consistency in the copy but let the feature have its own space in the navigation. This resonated with users moreso than our other versions.
Charity page with the ability to follow causes.
Search screen wireframe.
Iconography user test to validate user recognition of the icon design concepts..
Project journey in photos.
Takeaways
Research pointed to Venmo users having an open willingness to utilize a donation feature if it were implanted in Venmo’s current interface. However, a clear distinction between charity donations and crowdfunding contributions needed to be addressed in the feature design because of a cultural differentiation. It was difficult to bucket both into one category. Also, despite being class project, the feature was well received by users so it may be worth exploring for Venmo.