Venmo Redesign

Venmo is a widely used app to send money to one another, however, it was found, with one of their recent updates, that many users were unhappy with the navigation of the app. My team and I, based on our research, decided to redesign the navigation bar, the pending requests, as well as adding a hamburger menu.

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Timeframe: October - December 2021 (8 weeks)                                            

Team & Roles:

‍Maytar Ben-Biniamin - Design Lead

Muhammad Razi Hussain - Research Lead

Ifrah Sajjad - UX Strategist

Hetvi Chandan - UX Writer

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As the design lead, I spearheaded the process of creating the wireframes, lo-fi prototypes, hi-fi prototypes, as well as the iterations that were completed throughout the project. All of my design choices were based on our user research to best match the needs of the users.

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Why Venmo?

In Venmo’s newest update, many things changed such as, the icons and the navigation throughout the app. My team and I, as users' of Venmo, were not happy with this update and neither were other users who we surveyed and interviewed.

If people can’t navigate through the app efficiently and are feeling a sense of confusion by the UI of the app, then eventually they will switch over to the competitors. So, we decided to give Venmo a refresh!

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The Problem

• Difficult to find pending payment requests sent to user and vice versa.

• The search bar is not visible at all times - disappears when the user scrolls up.

• Sub-sections, such as cryptocurrency, should not be in the main navigation bar.

• Users have difficulty navigating around the Venmo app due to the confusing icons in the navigation bar.

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The Research‍

Out of 115 survey participants, with 75.3% of respondents being between the ages of 18-21 (71% female, 44% male), we have gathered the following data...

The following are direct quotes from a variety of our audience members...

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“Hard to see my balance”

“Don’t know where anything is”

“Checking your balance is tedious, should be easier”

“The buttons are hard to remember what they mean”

“I don't use crypto. They need to get crypto out of my face.”

"I don't like the how Venmo is like social media in a way"

“I don't like the new update and the way my feed looks. The old platform was a lot more clear in my opinion.”

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In 2021, Venmo reported having 76 million active accounts, about 6 million more than at the end of 2020 with 70 million active accounts. Our survey reported that 46.1% users were unsatisfied with the apps' navigation system.

Based on these statistics, there is the possibility that if the navigation is not fixed the users may switch to competitors such as Zelle, PayPal, or Apple Pay. This could result in Venmo losing nearly 15 million active users which would heavily impact their revenue and profits consequently.

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The Solution

To improve the customer satisfaction rate, my team members and I came up with a few solutions...

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• Make the search bar visible at all times.

• Make the balance easily visible on the home page.        

• Redesign the navigation bar from scratch to make navigation easier.        

• Redesign the icons on the navigation bar to be clear,  as per industry standards.

• Add a “pending requests” tab for received and sent requests to and from the user. 

• Add a hamburger menu to store features that are not the related to the core functionality of the app.  

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Scope

• The search bar being visible at all times will improve the user’s searching ability on the app.

• With the balance visible on the home page, users will save time without having to take extra steps.

• A pending request tab will end the hassle of finding who sent you payment requests and who you sent payment requests to.

• We expect the redesigned icons to be easily recognizable, understandable, and eradicate the prior confusion between similar icons.

• The new navigation bar will be more understandable by making it clear which tab the user is currently on and providing a clean aesthetic.

• With the new hamburger menu, we expect that the users will like the idea of only seeing the most commonly used features in the main navigation bar.

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Constraints

We identified the limitations of this redesign, as we do not have full freedom in our hands. We had to remind ourselves that Venmo is an already existing app that has certain aspects we cannot change.

1.   We cannot change the branding of Venmo, meaning the colors or typography. We want Venmo to still be identifiable for what people know it by.

2.   We cannot take away key functions of the app, such as it having a "social" aspect to it. Venmo is known for their socializing feature.

3.   The age of our target audience (18-21) limits our design choices and what features we may include. Venmo has an older audience as well, and they may be looking for different functions than someone of a younger age. We need to consider all ages, even though our main audience is between the ages of 18-21.

Once we got a grasp of our limitations, we started the design process, keeping these pieces in mind.

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Design Process

We utilized the double diamond strategy to successfully complete this case study.

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Information Architecture

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Low-Fidelity Prototype

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Typography, Colors, & Components

We used the font Poppins throughout the user interface to give our product a clean and modern look. To keep the branding of Venmo in our redesign and to give the users a sense of security we used white, blue and various shades of gray.

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Hi-Fidelity Prototype

Here's a look at our final design screens

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Check out the difference!

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Final Product

TRY IT FOR YOURSELF!

VIEW PROTOTYPE HERE.

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Takeaways & Reflections

This was my first full UX case study that I have completed, following each of the key steps. I have learnt a lot from this process, and I am excited to continue building case studies to build my skills and knowledge even further!

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Working remotely was a huge help. This project allowed me to get a feel for working in a team in an entirely remote setting. This environment assisted in working around each of our schedules, as well as facilitating our communication. We successfully communicated and completed this project in a quick and efficient manner. There are many benefits to working remotely, and after completing this project, I would definitely work in this setting again!

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Doesn't always go as planned. Initially we had only thought of making 4 screens, but we realized in order to portray the proper functionality of the new design, it was necessary to add more screens.

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It's never too late to make changes. After we created the prototype, we looked back at our user data and realized that we still needed to make some alterations which were forgotten about. Initially, we were planning on removing crypto from the navigation bar and replacing it with a different feature, however, that was a later alteration. In addition to those changes, we received user feedback on our design and took that into account while continuing the process.

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It's hard to include everything. As a group of 4, we had many different ideas of what we wanted to include in our designs and how we wanted to include it. Not everything which we planned in our initial design was included in the final product, as there were too many features we wanted to alter and add in a short period of time.

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