Venmo: “Split The Bill” & UX Analysis
Split the Bill
Why ‘Split the bill’?:
Venmo is a very commonly known payment platform that has radically changed the way we view online payments. However, there is a large area for improvement I have noticed with frequent use. I will demonstrate this issue with an example situation:
You and five other friends decide to go out to dinner and celebrate the end of your semester. Treating yourselves, you order many appetizers and a variety of entrees to share. You don’t think about how you will pay for the meal until the check comes. The server claims it is too difficult on their end to split the bill to represent who ate what during the meal due to the numerous items ordered. Rather than everyone putting their cards in since some people were unable to eat certain entrees and unwilling to pay for them, one person puts their card down and decides they will figure it out later. When it comes time to figure out the bill, it is up to one person to list out what everyone ate and then divide each item evenly amongst those people and individually add up the totals. The process is significantly elongated.
This is where a new Venmo feature can come into play. I imagine Venmo could have a “Split the bill” feature that does the math for you and Venmo’s the one person who put their card down.
Design Rationale
This feature would mitigate the hassle of calculating each individual's total in a simple and easy-to-follow manner.
I went through multiple iterations of this design before landing on this final design. I wanted the feature to be centralized but not too distracting from the main objective/usage of Venmo. Therefore, I included a small button on the transaction draft page, as that is the page users would land on anyway when looking to Venmo a friend after paying for a meal. From there, the user will be directed to a camera page where they can scan the bill they are currently about to pay. An AI will then recognize each item and its price along with the restaurant title. Next, the user can select each user who ate each item, including themselves if they shared that item. The feature will keep track each user and what they ate. From there, tip and tax will be split and added to each user's total. Once the splitting has been finalized, users will select the “Split the bill” button located at the bottom of the page to show completion. Once this button is selected, a Venmo request will be sent to each user for the amount they owe the person who put their card down.
Main Takeaways:
Increase user control by allowing users to draft payments
Improve flexibility of the system by allowing users to choose which card/balance the payment is drawn
Great use of language to indicate to the use what is happening at each step of the transaction process
UX Analysis
I analyzed each of Neilsen’s 10 Heuristics for Interface Evaluation to better understand the UX of Venmo. Once analyzing the system, I made informed recommendations on where Venmo could improve its UX. The full report is located below.
Full UX Analysis:
