SPLITWISE

OVERVIEW

Introducing Splitwise: Your Personal Finance Assistant on the Go!

Splitwise offers the convenience of having a dedicated personal finance assistant wherever you are. Perfect for managing expenses and splitting bills effortlessly among friends, roommates, or any group sharing costs, it's the ultimate solution for seamless financial collaboration.

CHALLENGE

As housing prices are on the rise, more people are turning to home-sharing. The ability to manage household expenses is now more important than ever. We think Splitwise is an interesting app to tackle to see how usable this app is in calculating household expenses, and how easily it is to create a group. The majority of bill-splitting applications are offered for free. Improving the usability of the mobile app through a heuristic evaluation will draw more users to Splitwise as a tool for managing their expenses fairly and equitably.

How might we improve/enhance the user experience of the existing app for customers?

RESEARCH

To enhance the user experience of the app, our team employed various evaluation methods to identify issues in the existing application and test the effectiveness of our recommendations and improvements.

EXPERT EVALUATION: Our team conducted an expert evaluation of the Splitwise mobile app using Nielsen’s 10 Usability Heuristics. Nielsen's set of usability principles was selected due to its wide usage and recognition among user experience professionals. This methodology shed light on the overall usability of the app and whether it was compliant with common usability principles. For this evaluation, we focused on 3 main tasks: account creation, group creation, and expense creation.

COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS: The goal of this evaluation is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Splitwise's primary competitors to gain insights into how Splitwise can improve its user experience and gain a competitive advantage in the expense-splitting app market. A competitive analysis identifies direct competitors and indirect competitors. For each identified competitor, information about their strategic positioning and digital products is gathered, and an evaluation is performed to determine their strengths and weaknesses to provide insight into Splitwise's position in the competitive landscape and what improvements can be made to expand their user base.

Direct competitors: companies that offer a similar product/service to the same customer base as Splitwise.

Indirect competitors: companies that offer a slightly different product/service to the same customer base as Splitwise.

Product influencer: a company that offers innovative features that Splitwise can use as an opportunity to differentiate themselves in their current market.

KEY FINDINGS:

Acasa laid out a user-driven tutorial in which users must input the desired information, which in turn completes setting up their home and additional users.
The loyalty program from Starbucks is a great example of how to keep users engaged.
The visual design of Settle Up gives users a great user experience and an easy-to-understand snapshot of their expenses.

PRIORITIZED FEATURES:

Add a feature that gamifies actions such as inviting friends, creating groups, and settling expenses for reward tokens, which unlock premium features.

People are more motivated as they get closer to a goal, so including gamification would motivate people to invite friends and use the app more, thereby increasing the number of people joining and using the Splitwise platform.

Include a user-driven walkthrough for new users in which the user sets up a group and expense as a part of a tutorial.

A guided walkthrough takes a hands-on approach to instructing new users on how to create groups and add expenses. This allows users to learn the basic functionalities of the app in their full context.

Add data visualization screens to communicate to users how much they owe to other users in the group.

Data visualization helps tell an immediate story about the group’s expenses, making it easy to understand and digest.

CARD SORT: This exercise helps to evaluate the information architecture, where users organize topics into categories that make sense to them. We performed a card sort exercise using the maze to understand where new features should be placed within the existing Splitwise app and gauge users’ priority level for a given feature. We structured the tests to have 23 cards (features) and 7 categories (pages). In the end, we asked them to rate how important these three features are on a 5-point scale. It was an unmoderated closed card sort setup.

CUSTOMER SEGMENTATION

Individual Users: These users use Splitwise to manage expenses, whether splitting bills with friends or tracking personal spending.
Roommates and Housemates: These users split living expenses and track them with Splitwise for fairness and clarity.

Friend Groups: These users often use Splitwise for shared expenses during social outings, trips, and events, with groups seeking an easy way to split costs.
Couples: Couples may use Splitwise to track shared expenses and manage joint finances efficiently.

- Business Users: Some users use Splitwise for business expenses, tracking reimbursable costs, or splitting work-related expenses.

- Frequent Travelers: Frequent travelers use Splitwise to split travel expenses with friends or track shared costs during trips.

PERSONAS

RE-DESIGN & PROTOTYPE

Figma clickable prototype of the redesigned app:

USABILITY TESTING

Quantitative Usability Test:

We conducted usability assessments on both the existing app and the redesigned prototype. By delving into user behavior trends through comprehensive numerical data analysis, our objective was to meticulously compare the metrics obtained from both tests. This approach allowed us to extract valuable insights that informed the redesign process, ensuring our improvements were rooted in empirical evidence and user-centered principles.

Key Findings

The font size of the buttons is too small.

Confusing labeling and smaller areas to click.

Increase in usability score by rewording and making other options visible.

Qualitative Usability Test:

In our usability evaluation process, we conducted thorough tests on both the current app and the redesigned prototype. Our focus extended beyond numerical data analysis; we delved into the realm of user emotions, expectations, comments, and thoughts. This holistic approach provided valuable qualitative insights in tandem with quantitative data analysis, enriching our understanding of user experiences and informing the refinement of our design solutions.

Key Findings

USER STORIES & ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA

USER STORY1:
As a first-time user, I want to know the exact steps to perform different tasks on the app so that I can learn to use it.
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA:

The app shall guide the user to at least one sample expense.
The guided walkthrough shall include features like adding friends and creating groups.

USER STORY2:
As a user, I want to create an expense & split it with others so that I can get paid for what I spent.
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA:

The app shall give the option to create a group when a user is splitting the bill with more than 1 friend.
The app shall allow users to add details like who paid, split method, reminders, images, and notes while creating an expense.

USER STORY3:
As a user, I want to be rewarded every time I invite a new friend to the app so that I can unlock new features to use.
ACCEPTANCE CRITERIA:

The app shall count the user rewards for every new user invited.
The app shall display the number of rewards required to unlock various features.
The app shall show the list of users invited and who have created an account.

RESULTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE REDESIGNED APP

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse