Fundamentally Changing the Core PayPal Product Offering
Iterating on design solutions informed by qual and quant customer pain points to improve onboarding flow confidence and click-thru-rates by 20% (relative).
Role
Lead Product Designer
Methodologies
UX Design; UI Design; Prototyping; Usability Research; Live Experimentation; Content Design & Direction; Stakeholder Buy-in
What to Expect
Define the Problem – Challenge, Requirements, Goals
Information Architecture
Solution Ideation
Research, Testing, and Experiments
Learnings & Iterations
Outcome
Challenge
PayPal’s primary function as a P2P money transfer platform revolves around the ability to hold a balance in the customer’s account for free.
In 2019, the CFPB passed a new regulation to protect customers from predatory behavior and hidden fees associated with “prepaid cards” that hold a balance. The new law required a specific template of fees and disclosures be shown, and customer identity verified.
Because customers can hold a balance in PayPal, PayPal was required to follow the new law.
The business and compliance decision was made to fundamentally change how PayPal worked by no longer allowing customers to hold a balance by default, but instead require them to opt into 1 of 2 types of subaccounts that would be able to hold a balance.
Requirements
New and existing customers would be affected by the new account structure
CFPB supplied very strict short- and long-form disclosures and legalese for any and all fees the customer could ever encounter, even for a feature they don’t use or the fee is zero
Customer will need to confirm their identity before creating a new subaccount
If customer does not want the subaccount, they can transfer the balance directly to their bank
PayPal Marketing named the 2 new subaccounts – PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus
The subaccount structure, new subaccount names, and effectiveness of the identity verification process were not part of the UX scope
Goals
Instill customer confidence and comprehension at the decision point through transparency and reduced friction
Guide customers through the option to create a new subaccount or transfer to their bank
Proactively allow existing customers to create a new subaccount prior to the switch
Reduce confusion around the “missing” balance feature for previous balance holders
Information Architecture
High-level user flows were explored via the primary trigger for creating a new PayPal Cash subaccount – receiving money into your account.
Single vs multi-page solutions for presenting the two types of disclosures were explored, and a single page approach was decided on.
Two pages
makes each page shorter, allowing more focus on each step
more steps, longer perceived flow
Single page
makes a longer page "endless scroll"
less steps overall in the flow
How might we prevent confusion for a large cohort of customers who are familiar with the balance feature when it disappears?
Target audience:
users who held a balance in the past 12 months
have now been flipped to a Wallet account
~2.8 million customers
segment has already been created for this cohort
Rules:
exists as alternate state of Balance tile
3 month lifecycle
if “Receive Event Card” or “Cash/Cash+ account tile” is active, do not show this tile anymore
Solution Ideation
Disclosures Page – Basic Starting Point for Usability Testing
How might we create transparency and understanding in the decision making process for the customer regarding a confusing onslaught of CFPB-required short- and long-form disclosures and legalese when creating the new Cash subaccount?
Home Screen Balance Tile Enhancements
How might we provide clarity on the Home dashboard regarding the status of the customer’s balance?
Adding new states to the tile framework I originally established for the Home Redesign project was a straightforward way to inform, while making it easy to build.
Home Screen Activity Tile Enhancements
How might we provide better clarity on funds the customer has available versus funds they have not yet claimed via setting up a Cash account?
Without any changes, claimed and unclaimed funds will appear the same in the Activity section. This can be solved with a few simple tweeks to the front- and back-ends.
Proactive Entrypoints
How might we make it easy for a customer to create their subaccount ahead of time so when they do receive money they get their money seamlessly?
The cohort that receives an email to “set up your Cash account before you lose your balance” will be shown a contextual message upon log in on any platform.
Research, Testing, & Experiments
Methods of Testing Conducted
In-person moderated lab usability testing
I built high-fidelity prototypes run through eye- and hotspot tracking machines
I wrote scripts and conducted interviews for qualitative results
Live experiments
After 8 participants, we iterated on designs and launched multiple variants mainly focused on content
Worked with the Analytics team to parse quantitative data
Contextual Surveys
Added a short pop-up survey when the customer backed out of the Disclosure screen for qualitative data around what they didn’t like
I reviewed the survey results weekly for insights on how to improve conversion
Learnings & Iterations
After multiple rounds of iterations based on direct customer feedback and data, we were able to increase the click-thru-rate on the Disclosures screen by 20% (relative), from 62.6% to 75.1%.
Biggest Takeaways
Simply being shown fee tables, even though most all fees were $0, caused customers to think there were new fees
“Why are you showing me all these fees now after I’ve had my account for years? It makes me think there will be hidden fees.”
“Why are you charging fees when PayPal has always been free?!?”
SPOILER ALERT: there were no new fees and keeping a balance still has a $0 fee
The new account names – PayPal Cash and PayPal Cash Plus – were confusing and caused customers to think their cash would be converted to some sort of branded crypto
“I just want my money, not some stupid new cryptocurrency!”
We proposed changing the names to simply PayPal Balance and PayPal Balance Plus, but it would have been too costly of a change
Who moved my cheese?
The concept and regulation-driven process of creating a new subaccount within a product that has been used one way for years was just too big of a change for most customers
Moving the Needle
Focused steps vs less steps
Hypotheses
Showing the EDU content on a separate screen from the disclosures would allow the user to focus better on each
Showing the EDU content and disclosures on the same screen would make the overall flow seem less cumbersome
Impact
Pre-launch moderated lab testing
Showing a single screen reduced steps and made the process feel quicker
Clarity on the next action
Hypothesis
As a pretty standard feature for long disclosures, adding a button to allow the user to automatically scroll to the bottom will help conversion rates
Impact
Live experiment
Floating “Chevron” button
+2.9% relative increase in click-thru-rates over control
Floating “Click to Scroll” button
+13.3% relative increase in click-thru-rates over control
TL;DR information overload
Hypothesis
Since customers were confused by being shown every single fee, even for unused features, $0 fees, and unchanged fees in a complicated government-prescribed format, adding a more scannable tl;dr of the fees they were most concerned about would clarify things
Customers prefer to scan content in chunks, not read flowing content
Impact
This iteration had the biggest impact on comprehension, confidence, and CTR
Live experiment
Flowing copy plus a “common fees” summary
+8.4% relative increase in click-thru-rates over control
Bulleted copy plus a “common fees” summary
+9% relative increase in click-thru-rates over control
Outcomes
Improved comprehension and CTR on the CFPB-prescribed disclosures screen
The designs and content were improved over multiple rounds of iterations and experiments to raise the CTR from 62.6% to 75.1% (20% relative)
A “successful failure”
This new regulation, account structure, and account names, while intended to protect the customer, ultimately ended up confusing the customer more and harming the business
The legal team at PayPal decided to sue the government to overturn this new regulation, based on the usability testing and data, eventually winning this lawsuit and returning to “business as usual” – everyone gets to hold a balance in their main account
