YourShare

Share the costs,

without creating IOU's

People often share costs with others when they are out socialising, but no current way exists for people to split costs without first creating informal debt. YourShare is a mobile app I designed as part of my work for Career Foundry.

Why design it?

My Hypothesis

Gaps currently exist in allowing people to split a cost for certain purchases or bills without creating informal debt and having to "figure out" the cost per person after the fact. An app which allows groups to evenly and simply split finances so that no single perso's bank account is relied on would be beneficial.

My workflow

A snapshot of my design process.

Understand

Surveys

After some competitive analysis of SplitWise and SettleUp I surveyed 20 people who currently split costs with others. The idea was that this would help me structure my user interviews. The results were:

77%

of users said they don't follow up IOUs

55.5%

of users said they split costs with others once a week or more

87.5%

of users said they don't know where their money goes despite trying to save

User Interviews

From user interviews I collected 11 insights, with 5 main themes

Feelings

People won't follow up small amounts due to a feeling of awkwardness

Behaviours

People are watching what they spend more due to the financial climate

Payment

People prefer to pay with a form of contactless payment

Location

People often split costs at restaurants, cafes, and bars

Process

IOU's are only followed up if they are small in amount

Personas

I was able to clearly identify that gaps exist in informal debt management and that my app would need to make sharing funds as seamless as possible to fill that gap. I put faces to the users and that helped me ground myself in understanding where the real-world problems might spring up.

See Personas

User Journey

This led me to looking at what a scenario where my app could be implemented and how. My interviews had told me that younger people shared costs often out and about and at home, and so through Aanya I found that multiple options for intervention existed...

See User Flow

Ideate

Sketching

After finalising the general architecture by creating the site map, I moved on to sketching ideas for the main user flows.

Test

Identifying Problems in the Design

I held the testing by screen sharing and allowing access so that we could both see the prototype - making the process a little more seamless.

I kept the conversation casual and asked my users to go through my major flows:

Signing up
Creating a card
Topping up a card

Results

6/6 users

Couldn't see who they had added to a card

3/6 users

Didn't know how to add a card

2/6 users

Didn't know how to name a card

4/6 users

Couldn't add a top up amount to a card

6/6 users

Couldn't use the pay now button

Main Takeaway

After all my tests were completed I took some time to step back, listen to the results and start to categorise errors .

My key takeaway from testing was that, in my effort to keep the design simple, I inadvertently created confusion - something that had stumped me from the beginning. The lack of clear prompts, visual depth, and button-like elements made it difficult for users to intuitively engage with the app and create their first card.

Iterate

Collaboration with Peers

After working through errors I started iteration on designs with the help from feedback from peers who were also students of the Career Foundry Program. I was looking for feedback on, mainly feedback on the home screen as it had left me stumped after user testing. I also sought feedback for topping up a card, and creating a card. The feedback is finalised below:

Style Guide

As my design progressed I worked on creating my style guide. I focused on choosing bright, vibrant colours. I checked each component to make sure they met accessibility guidelines as per WCAG.

The Finished Product

1. Account Creation

Creating an account can be done through email, or through social link such as Google or Apple accounts.
Users are able to input their fingerprint for a faster, and also more secure log in to their account.

2. Creating a Card

Creating a group card is as easy as inviting other group members via email link or by copying a link to send to them.

3. Adding Funds to a Card

Adding funds to a card is done by payment with a user's own debit/credit card. Users can request other group members to top up the card with same amount.

4. Financial Insights

Creating a group card is as easy as inviting other group members via email link or by copying a link to send to them.

Evaluate

The lesson I learnt was to get too caught up on one idea and test early and often. This was especially true with my home screen as after testing.

In the future I would like to to work on what the mechanism linking the card with Google or Apple pay may look like.