DESIGNING THE SHARED BANKING EXPERIENCE

We were excited to move on to the design process. There were three key features we wanted to explore and conceptualize: Shared Savings, Cash Fam, Group Tab, and Recurring Expenses. I individually focused on conceptualizing the Shared Savings, Group Tab, and Recurring Expenses feature.

How did the initial designs start out?

It was a challenging start because we had no idea what these designs could look and feel like. Fortunately, we received their design system as a starting point, so it helped us start sketching quickly what these designs could look like. We did many in-house design jams to get the ball rolling. The biggest thing we want to incorporate into our design is aligning ourselves with Cash App’s existing design patterns to ensure feasibility and doesn’t provide any unnecessary changes.

Initial Designs - Cash Fam

This low-fidelity user flow shows the creation of a Cash Fam. The feature has been integrated into the existing Banking page of Cash App.

Cash Fams are the basis of our design solution. Given that we designed to incorporate shared financial responsibilities, savings, budget, and expenses, into a peer-to-peer payment application, the ability to create and maintain social groups is our conceived design solution.

This flow shows the tabs of a Cash Fam group. From this Cash Fam page, a user can create a variety of shared finances. The team’s other design concepts that arose from our user research and ideation can be seamlessly integrated through this flow. 

Once the logistics of the savings are set up, each group member will input their own personal savings goals, milestone dates, and transparency level. Transparency levels allow users to cater to what their group mates see to what the individual user is comfortable with (low, medium, or high transparency of dollar amount of savings). With all the setup done, users and group mates can view their savings accountability dashboard, and track how they are individually doing, and how their group is doing.

This flow above shows the second way to input an expense into a group tab, through manual input. Manual input of a receipt requires that the user enters every item and tags the individual that paid and consumed the item. 

The four screens above highlight flexibility around ways to split a bill. Users and Cash Fams can split their bills evenly, by the dollar amount, or by percentages.

The user experience of viewing the group’s tab is explored. Members of Cash Fam groups can see all their shared expenses, the receipts for such, and how much is owed as a compilation or total. 

Finally, in the group tab flows, there is a feature of closing the group tab. By closing the group tab, all expenses and transactions documented in the tab will be sent out as requests from those that owe money on behalf of those that need reimbursement. 

What were the key usability insights for this concept?

The number of participants for usability testing was n = 7. These participants were instructed to perform a series of tasks within the group tab user experience flow.

The context given to the participants was the following: “You and your friends are on the trip now. The group just shared the first dinner and you paid for the whole meal. You want to be sure that everyone pays for their meal portion. Create a group tab for this expense.” 

The tasks were the following:

1. Add a receipt to the group tab. 

2. Tag Cash Fam members to different receipt items

3. Add a custom shared expense to the group tab (that does not have an affiliated receipt)

4. Close the group tab

5. View the Cash Fam history and archive tabs

Participants in the usability tests were asked to speak aloud as they executed the tasks. The following are insights from the usability test.

• Add a receipt 

  • It can feel overwhelming with the manual creation of adding a receipt 

  • Most users gravitated toward scanning a receipt than manually inputting expense information 

  • Would like scanning a receipt to be the default over manual entry because manual takes long – although, a scan would have to be accurate

• Tag people to different items

  • Lack of discoverability in assigning the items

  • Users wonders if they could be assigned themselves

  • Understood the checkmarks convey users approved the items

• Add a custom shared expense

  • Add more instructions/words; icons/symbols are not enough

  • At first, participants thought they had to enter in information for each – split equally, split by amount, and split by percent. Was not clear that you should only do one.

• Close tab

  • The summary of indicating who owns what was unclear. The arrows didn’t convey the right assumptions

  • Went to the summary tab to do so simply because they did not see it anywhere else

  • Want to be able to constantly see the most updated numbers for how much each person owes in the group tab

• See the archived tab

  • Users wished to see more summarized information in the archive tab

Initial Designs - Recurring Expenses

For recurring expenses, repeatedly requesting for one-time payment can be repetitive and strenuous. The burden falls onto the payer to manually request other individuals for the payments.

Therefore, by allowing individuals to set up automated recurring payments within the existing Request system of Cash App.

The flow below shows the creation of a recurring payment. This flow is incorporated into the existing “Pay” function of Cash App. There is now a recurring payment toggle button, which prompts users to input more information about the payment type, like frequency, the number of occurrences, and start and end times. Once completed, users will see a completions screen and they can confirm their recurring payment information through this screen. 

The flow is in order from top to bottom!