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Uowe, a mobile app that makes it simple to split bills with friends. See who owes who and make secure payments to each other.

Role

UX design lead
Branding
Prototyping
Research
Copy writing

Deliverables

Mobile app
Marketing
Website
design system

Tools

Figma
Maze
Userzoom
Webflow

Solving an existing pain-point

Over the years, the university branch of Santander bank has been facing a recurring issue of students opening bank accounts but leaving them idle, with only 30% of students actively using their accounts after graduation. Despite taking advantage of the benefits of opening a new account, these students do little everyday banking with it.

To address this problem, the bank initiated an ambiguous greenfield project with the aim of incorporating a form of payment journey that could provide a solution. TThe objective was to increase customer acquisition and establish a long-term banking relationship.

My role

Throughout the project, I assumed various roles, beginning as a researcher responsible for uncovering and comprehending existing issues. As the project advanced, I evolved into a product designer, overseeing all research, discovery, and design aspects. Eventually, I was promoted to the lead designer and managed a team of three individuals as I was tasked with managing multiple projects concurrently.

Discovery: Deliverables & Methodologies

A mixture of deliverables & methodologies was used throughout the project, such as the following:

Interviews - To gain insight into the root cause of the problem and understand how young people managed their finances, we conducted several rounds of interviews, with 4-6 individuals participating in each session.

Affinity Mapping - By categorising our observations into themes and patterns, we were able to discern the most prevalent pain points that our target audience experiences.

Personas - Using the research findings, I developed multiple personas representing our target audience to enable the team to comprehend their motivations and requirements and how they can be translated into a product.

In addition, we utilised several other techniques, such as Userzoom surveys, customer journey maps, competitor analysis, and empathy mapping.

Developing a solution

Our research revealed that young people did not perceive any advantages or benefits in having a second bank account. There was no incentive to move existing direct debits or share a new account number with friends and family.

Given this insight, we shifted our focus to another finding that emerged during the interviews.

Ideation

After conducting an affinity mapping exercise, we identified three themes that presented an opportunity for resolution:

  1. 1. Managing money.
  2. 2. Managing bills with friends.
  3. 3. Stocks/ Crypto investing/ education

As a team, we selected "Splitting bills with friends" as the problem we could quickly validate and build to help solve the business problem (acquisition). We engaged with the tech team to understand any limitations, legal and compliance factors, and areas where we may encounter issues.

Within this problem, we also uncovered three pain points that we could effectively address:

  1. 1. Automating the calculation of money owed by individuals or groups
  2. 2.Simplifying the process of requesting money and removing the awkwardness
  3. 3. Streamlining payments and reducing friction.
Sketching and testing

In the initial stages, we created high-level wireframes to explore our ideas, which gave us a solid starting point to identify gaps, generate alternate solutions, and obtain initial feedback from engineers.

As we received more feedback and validation, we went through multiple iterations, adding more details and refining the designs. Working alongside the PM, we planned short and long-term strategies to ensure timely delivery.

To validate the designs, we employed tools like Userzoom, Maze, and real users to conduct testing throughout this period.

Minimum lovable product (MLP)

Testing the early prototypes provided valuable insights into the expectations and needs of users to simplify their current approach to managing expenses with friends.

With the goal of streamlining money management among friends, I designed Uowe to perform all the calculations, removing the discomfort associated with handling finances with friends.

For payment processing, we chose Open Banking due to its rapid implementation, ease of use, and having an existing license.

Defining Product Principles

Decision-making can be challenging when faced with limited time, data, or technological constraints. However, having principles in place can simplify the decision-making process, keep us focused on what matters, and enable us to move faster.

Simplicity is key - People typically take simple notes of who owes them money. Our app should replicate this simplicity and only show users the information that is relevant to completing the task. Our focus is on assisting users, while the app handles the more complex tasks.

Human touch - Our product is designed to help people and their friends manage money and payments, emphasising the importance of trust between the user and the app.

Why? Finance can be confusing, and we do not want to sound like a banker or an artificial intelligence (AI) bot. Our UX copy should be concise, clear, useful, and human-centered.

Final design

The subsequent stages of the development process involved iterating on the design of new flows, collecting feedback from stakeholders and users, and refining the designs based on feedback from beta users through prototyping and testing.

Concurrently, I collaborated with the marketing team to produce social media assets and built the Uowe website using Webflow.