Unplex
1.5 Weeks
UX Designer
For this stage of the project, we were asked to improve upon an app that is currently in development. Our clients were members of the Indian community and valued the tradition of cash gifting. They wanted to bring their sense of community to the mobile app and make the platform something more than a banking utility.
After finishing the first sprint, which focused on a WhatsApp integration, we only had 1.5 weeks before starting the second sprint. We arranged a meeting with our clients to discuss what we could possibly deliver within this timeframe, and we reached an agreement to focus on one feature instead of the entire app. We believed that prioritising the quality of the work was more important than the quantity of work.
Cash gifting is considered a customary practice, particularly during special occasions such as weddings, festivals, and religious ceremonies. It is common for family members, friends, and well-wishers to give monetary gifts as a gesture of blessings, good luck, and support to the recipient.
It’s difficult for Indians abroad, especially first-generation immigrants, to engage in cash gifting with family and friends back in India. While there are plenty of platforms that offer money transfer services across different countries, they often lack a personal touch. Sending money is not the same as giving a cash envelope.
Digital experience
(Mobile banking notification)
Actual experience
(Indian cash envelope)
A convenient way to send money online while also providing users with a traditional cash gifting experience. This feature helps the business stand out from other mobile banking platforms because while others only offer money transfer services across multiple countries, our platform goes beyond that by incorporating the cash gifting experience.
Upcoming occasion feature to get users closer to friends and family back home.
The user is able to specify the desired amount they want the receiver to receive. In the case of India, odd numbers, particularly number 1, are considered lucky.
Scheduling payments allows users to be a part of the celebration at the right time.
Choose the envelope for your special occasion, just as you would have done by visiting a shop to make a purchase in the old days.
The design here is meant to showcase the selection of designs. We suggested to the client that commissioning Indian artists to create these envelope designs could make this feature even more special.
During this group client project, we approached the double diamond together but took on individual responsibilities. As a UX Designer, my role included carrying out competitive research, comparative research, sourcing interviewees from my own network, conducting user interviews, synthesising data and insights, sketching, making design decisions with three other team members, and usability testing.
As someone from an Asian background who is familiar with the cultural practice of cash gifting, I was able to contribute ideas to build this feature. My personal experiences and understanding of the importance of cash gifting allowed me to provide valuable input that helped shape the development of this culturally significant aspect.
From our research, we realised that only Venmo has a similar concept to the gifting feature we were trying to implement in our product. The other mobile banking platforms primarily focus on the banking services themselves. Therefore, I believe the feature we designed will certainly add value to our client’s product.
The initial client conversation made me think of the cash gifting culture in Asia so I researched features such as WeChat Red Packet and Line Red Envelope. We felt the features in these apps could have valuable insight for this project.
WeChat Red Packet and Line Red Envelope are features that incorporate cash gifting culture into a digital platform. In both cases:
In order to know more about cash gifting culture in India we then decided to interview users. The goal was to understand:
After 13 interviews we found out:
“You are unable to convey emotion with bank transfer”
“Gives cash gifts only in person usually”
“I did cash-gifts for birthdays, anniversaries, weddings or like a milestone birthday, something more special”
“A lot of times gift money is given in a nicely decorated envelope similar to red envelopes in China.”
“Gifting lots less cash - more Amazon vouchers and all inclusive gift cards”
“The alternative to that is a gift card that a lot of people give each other if they do not give a particular gift.”
From the insights we gathered we shaped a persona, a problem statement and HMW questions to help us focus on our target users.
By collecting all the findings we discovered through affinity mapping we then created the persona - Virat.
He moved to the US in 2008 and stays connected to family and friends with WhatsApp, whether they are back home or in the US. Feeling part of a community gives him a real sense of purpose and also enables him to feel supported.
He tends to send gift vouchers as it’s easier than sending a money transfer, which feels far less personal. He feels frustrated not being able to do cash gifting to his loved ones in real life, as it felt really traditional and very special. Living far away means he now has to make a concerted effort to stay connected to his community.
‘Virat has stopped partaking in the tradition of cash gifting, as he is unable make the experience feel personable and capture the cultural significance’
‘How might we create a cash gifting solution that leverages the excitement and tradition of physical experience?’
To get more ideas and not just stick with existing assumptions, we invited two instructors from the General Assembly to join us for this activity. The design studio was an opportunity to put our problem statement and HMW question into practice.
Having an envelope that the receiver taps to open was the key winner because it best simulates the real experience. This was followed by also being able to send a video message and a voice message.
Following up on the result we got from the design studio, we then started drawing individually and discussed the possible result we could deliver in the short time frame which was communicated with clients. The lo-fi sketch was based on the original design with some changes we have seen in other mobile banking apps to create familiarity for users.
After sketching our ideas and creating a wireframe, we decided to make changes to the input amount page based on one interview insight: Users gifted a meaningful number according to their culture. We also added video and voice note features to make the experience even better.
I want to give a big thanks to Daniel for his impressive skills in creating envelope animation. This helped us test how much people would like this new feature with the animation of opening an envelope.
Moving toward mid-fi testing, we tested 8 users. The testing goal was to understand:
During the usability testing we found out:
“If I cancel at any stage after populating my message I would want it to be saved somewhere”
“It will be good to have a pop up message after pressing the cancel button.”
“The x and - symbols are too small”
“The title ‘Gift to’ is too small I didn’t notice or read it”
Before we jumped into the hi-fi stage, Sarah and Daniel conducted a mini UI audit while Charlotte and I were preparing a presentation. We wanted to have a good understanding of their UI across all three digital touch points (Website, WhatsApp and App) in order to create a seamless UI experience for our user.
During this process we noticed several very similar colours were being used in the current beta app design. Understanding that this was still in development, we used the colours from the live website as our reference, adding a small selection of neutrals.
We also created a typography stylesheet based on the existing app design. We chose to keep the typography pretty much the same; just slightly increasing the size and letter spacing of the label element - we knew this would instantly help with legibility.
To make sure that this feature is accessible to everyone is really important before the hi-fi stage. Sarah ran the current CTA through an accessibility test on Coolors and found that it failed, so we decided to slightly tweak the teal and change the text to black so that it passed.
We wrote a testing plan to validate our changes after mi-fi testing and we also wanted to know how users felt about the colour palette after the UI audit and how they would picture the schedule payment feature.
Feedback included:
“I’d like to have the gift button inside the send function.”
“Can I have the date for the upcoming event?”
“I would expect to see a calendar”
“I really enjoyed the feature”
“Felt this screen was very clear”
At this stage, we were near the end of the project, so we could only factor in some minor improvements. However, we presented all the feedback to our clients, and we hope it will be helpful for them to continue growing the feature.
A convenient way to send money online while also providing users with a traditional cash gifting experience. We implemented a cash gifting feature that matches the company vision to stay financially involved in their community while living abroad.
With features such as:
The timeframe of this sprint was 1.5-week, but if we had more time working with Unplex, we would have tried to cover some of these features:
Our clients were really happy with the work we did to make this new cash gifting feature, and asked us to continue working with them to buildt the remainder of the app. It was great to work with them. They were really helpful in providing all the information we need in order to achieve the final result.
And a big shoutout to my teammates Charlotte, Daniel, and Sarah! Without them, we wouldn’t have this amazing cash gifting feature. In the end, we made a part of the app that we all loved and believed would make Unplex successful with its users.