Paymee
No more money trouble with your roommates
About the project
I designed an end to end bill splitting app for people who share a house with their friends. About 32% of U.S. adults have an adult roommate who is not a romantic partner or child aged 18-24. Plenty of people (nearly 79 million of them, to be exact) are dealing with roommates on a regular basis. Money troubles with roommates are very common. This app can track all expenses and nudge others to pay back
| Client | : | Design Lab |
| Role | : | UI/UX design, Research, Branding |
| Duration | : | 4 weeks, December 2021 |
| Tools | : | Figma, Whimsical, Adobe Illustrator |
The Challenge
One person tends to pay everything upfront and ask others to pay back. The person who pays for others often has 3 major problems:
- Don’t want to be stingy: They want to split bills equally but sometimes hesitate to ask money for small items.
- Hard to track: It’s hard to nudge best friends. It’s more difficult to track when they share a house with 2+ people.
- Switch between multiple apps: They use a calculator app to split bills, send an amount via message app, receive money via payment app.
The solution
This bill splitting app solves all problems above.
- Payer creates an account and add all expenses for the month
- Add your friends into the page so that they can keep tracking
- Once you input all expenses, confirm the amount to send a payment request
- The app will nudge them until they complete the payment
Here’s how i solved the problem
RESEARCH
Interviewed with 3 GenZ who have roommates and created a persona
IDEATION
Analyzed competitors (Splitwise, Venmo, Cash app) and ideated potential solutions
PROTOTYPING
Made a bunch of wireframes and hosted usability test
RESEARCH
Payers have a tough time asking for a small amount of money because they don’t want to be stingy.
Interview with 3 GenZ audience
I conducted interviews with 3 people who are sharing a house with others. I found it interesting that all participants have one person pay everything upfront and collect money later. It makes them split bills easily but causes other problems.
(1) Don’t want to be stingy
They collect money one by one because everything is charged separately. Payer asks roommates to pay back at least 4 times a month (Rent, WiFi, Electricity and Gas, Water) and hesitates to request a small amount of money for example a shared toilet paper. However the small amount will become bigger when they share a house for a longer term.
(2) Hard to track
Most students in the US can’t make a credit card and they collect e-receipts or physical ones to check how much they owe someone. Payers need to track multiple payments when they share a house with more than 2 people. It’s hard to track who paid and who didn’t when they have multiple transactions with multiple people.
(3) Switch between multiple apps
They use 4 apps to complete the bill splitting: Email, Calculator, Message, Peer-to-peer payment app. First, they check their email to confirm how much they expense, and then use a calculator app to do division. They send a message with the amount and the roommate uses a peer-to-peer payment app such as Venmo to pay the amount.
Persona
I made a persona based on user interviews. Primary persona is a GenZ worker who shares a house with best friends.
Problem Statement is “Savannah is a reliable and well-organized GenZ worker who needs to calculate splitting bills with her roommates easily because she doesn’t want to have any money troubles with her best friends. “
IDEATION
How might we make the bill splitting more smooth and fun?
Competitor Analysis
I did a competitor analysis to understand existing apps they are using and finding unmet needs. Splitwise is a direct competitor but there is a steep learning curve to master how to use it. Peer-to-peer apps are doing better jobs to make transactions fun and enjoyable with lots of motion and bold colors. I decided to make the navigation simpler so that everyone can use it from the day1. I also used vivid colors and lots of illustrations to cheer their bill splitting.
User Jourey Map
I created a user journey map to see which part of the journey causes the biggest problem. Originally I planned to allow everyone to input their expenses, but realized that it would make it more complicated. Making a user journey map made me aware of steps I can cut off.
Storyboard
In order to simplify the flow, I created a close-up storyboard.
Task Flow
With lots of iterations, I concluded this task flow.
PROTOTYPING
Simplifying the process as much as possible with lots of visual elements.
Low-fidelity prototype
I created a Low-Fidelity Wireframe to run an early usability study.
I was lucky enough to test the prototype with people who haven’t used any bill splitting services. These are the findings from the user testing.
- They have no ideas where to click on the home page.
- Once they see the result page, they get how it works.
- They want an admin to input everything so that they just see the result.
User Interface
I created an app name, Logo, and UI kit.
I named the app “Paymee” so that friends can understand the concept easily when they receive notification from the app.
Based on the competitor analysis, I used bold colors as brand colors. I designed the logo by combining coins (meaning money) and popcorn (meaning sharing something).
Hi-Fi Prototype
I finalized the Hi-Fi prototype as below.
TAKEAWAYS
Through the experience, I found the following insights.
Using credit card is not common among GenZ in the US
Ignoring the situation that multiple people expense made me move forward
Creating account may be a hurdle for new users, but it enables useful functionalities
If time allowed, I would improve the onboarding process for friends invited through the app.
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