I developed a group payment app to address the financial burden of group outings amongst younger generations. This app generates an NFC card for each new group, allowing group expenses to be shared equally and eliminating the liability on a single person
Younger generations overspend due to social pressures. Since Gen Z has grown up in a society full of accessible entertainment options and social media, they are the generation most likely to over-consume due to this combination of entertainment and social pressures. They are the catalyst of growth for the experience economy.
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I conducted five user interviews within my target audience (19-27, goes out 2x week, NYC) to dig deeper into whether social factors were causing people to overspend, or if people were comfortable communicating financial boundaries.
I categorized responses from each interviewee into either a motivator, behavior or pain point, then I grouped each post-it into similar themes.
The interviews revealed that that P2P payment apps do not effectively solve group payments because small purchases often go unnoticed, tracking every receipt is cumbersome, and people frequently forget to reimburse. The insight that I found to be most compelling to dig deeper in is that many people feel anxious about putting a card down for the group, but they are willing to do it if no one else offers, as long as they know everyone in the group.
Knowing that my most compelling insight was that people have anxiety putting their card down for the group but are still willing to do it led me to my How Might We (HMW) Question.
How might we ease anxiety of financial liability for group purchases in order to instill more trust and financial balance within a friend group?
After I analyzed the outtakes from the affinity map I created a persona that represents my target user.
Key user stories were categorized into the core epic of Quickly Paying functionality. This guided the task flow which came from the perspective of illustrating a user onboarding, creating a group, adding their friends, and itemizing a tab.
Before sketching, I gathered inspiration for screens and actions in my task flow. Since the MVP aimed to provide a quick and seamless way to split and itemize payments with friends, my sketches explored different methods for adding friends to a group and itemizing a bill. I also considered the number of steps in the onboarding process to ensure users could easily grasp the concept without feeling overwhelmed.
Once I landed on a few possible solutions I began creating Low-Fi Wireframes in Figma. These were translated into mid-fi frames and tested in two rounds of 5 people over zoom and in-person. I had each testee walk through 5 different tasks including onboarding, creating a new group, adding group card to Apple Wallet, itemize a reciept and locate all prior transactions.
After testing I compiled the feedback and assessed which changes to prioritize based on which provided the highest value and impact.
I prioritized the following:
The UI Library I created to capture TabUp's look and feel was focused around the brand adjectives I chose which were "modern", "youthful", "innovative" and "present".
I chose slate blue as my primary color, warm coral as a secondary and shades of dark purple as a neutral. Blue which is important because this is financial app, dark purple feels elegant and modern and the pop of warm coral injects the youthful undertone of my audience. Since accessibility was a major consideration I used shades and hints of these three colors.
Enhanced product-thinking: This project opened myself up to thinking through how design affects adoption strategies, onboarding experiences and use of new technology (like NFC cards).
End-to-end Design Process: Through this project, I gained a comprehensive understanding of the end-to-end design process, from initial research and ideation to prototyping, testing, and final implementation. This experience taught me the importance of aligning user needs with business goals at every stage, ensuring that each design decision is informed by data and user feedback to create impactful, user-centered solutions.
I would measure the impact of my solution by understanding how many reimbursement conversations were avoided because of TabUp and any areas that still need improvement. This will involve gathering user feedback to assess the effectiveness of the app in reducing social friction and streamlining payment processes.
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