Product Thinking | UX Research | UI Design | Case Competition

Increasing the adoption of Wealthsimple Cash among students

‍background 📖

The app that was going to change the game

Wealthsimple Cash is a mobile app that allows users to send and request money with no fees while earning cash, stock, and crypto rewards in the process.

Despite its impressive offerings, the app struggled to gain traction, particularly among university students and recent grads.

‍the problem❓

Are promo codes not enough?

Wealthsimple Cash targeted young users by offering promo codes for popular restaurants in student-centric cities (e.g. Waterloo, Ontario).
‍
While this strategy drove the number of downloads, once the promo codes expired, the rate of attrition rose, leaving the main features of the app untouched.

‍the solution ❓

A new onboarding

I introduced onboarding to the app to enhance discoverability and highlight Cash’s distinctive features that set it apart from any money transferring app. This allows users to find out if the product has value to them and also alleviate any frustration users were having when navigating the app, ultimately improving adoption rates.

analysis💬

Understanding the current experience

Missing direction
Upon signing up and verifying their number, users land on the home screen without any how-tos, tips, or feature highlights.

Lack of Personality
To build positive brand equity, having a unique and memorable personality is crucial when trying to leave a lasting impression.

User survey🧑🧑

This app just gets us free food... right?

I sent out a survey to 35 university students who consider themselves active users of the application. To gather insight on their incentive to use the application, I inquired about which feature they most frequently use on Cash.

The results show that 51.2% of users primarily use the app to redeem the free food and referral bonuses and only 20.9% of users are using its core functionality, sending/receiving cash.

User interviews 💬

Users are frustrated having to navigate the app on their own

I also spoke to two “tech-savvy” University of Waterloo students who had been using Cash for at least two weeks. From these conversations, it was clear that navigating the app was a point of frustration for users and that there needed to be more opportunities for them to explore the capabilities of the app.

‍Discoverability
Both users were currently using the app for free food offers. When asked about what other functionalities the app has, they failed to mention you can transfer money transferring for free.

Navigation
When asked about their experience navigating the app for the first time, both users had difficulty finding the promo code feature as it felt "hidden" in a menu.

Archetypes💎

Who are our target users?

Drawing insights from the interviews and the survey, I was able to come up with two personas. The first persona represents the challenges faced by a student dealing with financial constraints and the other is a young professional who is trying to cut back costs and save where he can.

solution overview ⚒📐

Why I chose an interactive onboarding

Educating Users
Providing clear guidance on app functionalities minimizes user frustration and enhances the overall app experience. This improved experience, in turn, encourages continued app usage and exploration of its various features, ultimately boosting retention rates.
‍
A Better First Impression
Offering users a well-rounded introduction infused with personality and distinctive branding fosters higher levels of user engagement and strengthens brand recognition. Additionally, it communicates a genuine concern for ensuring users have the most seamless experience possible.

Wireframes ✏️🗒

To understand how things were going to look, I drew a quick sketch

final design👩🔬

An interactive onboarding process that guides users and highlights core features.

Adding a contact

Encouraging users to perform actions in the app and adding a bit of personality to the experience.

Sending/receiving money

By making them send money to another user, we can highlight our functionality and value proposition.

Redeem a promo code

Adding promo codes and receiving referral bonuses are one of the most used functions on the app amongst younger audiences so showing this  feature would be able to rid of any frustrations.

‍reflecting📋

So what did I learn?

☝️Experiment more
‍Throughout this process I could've pushed myself to look at other options such as adding tooltips to the app, having a FAQ section, etc. More extensive exploration could have helped validate why this solution is the best fit or areas of improvement.
‍
✌️Go the extra mile
‍Though it was not required to conduct usability testing, it could have helped prove the viability of my solution. Or, if my solution did not perform as well as I thought, it could have prompted me to look other approaches.

solution

Native app for management
and optimization communication
between parents and their toddler nanny

Parents Onboarding

After the parent has logged in through one of his social media profiles the app forwards him to chat with a bot that will take the information about the toddler.

Nanny’s Onboarding

All the information that was received during the parent's onboarding will be displayed to the nanny.

Home Instruction

To decrease unnecessary engagement with explanations to the nanny the app will allow adding AR notes around the house.

Home Instruction

So that the nanny can easily find what she needs.

Nanny’s Interaction

On the nanny's home page she will see all the messages left for her and enter the information about the toddler's agenda.

Parents Interaction

On the parents home page they can see all the info collected during the day in a quick and easy scan.