Chime Case Study
"Move Money" Feature
Having primarily used online banking for my entire adult life, I have used various banking apps over the years. Chime is one of the more user-friendly banking experiences that I’ve had. Being a completely online bank, their interface has to give their users a positive experience, as that is the primary way their clients will engage with their company.
The Chime app has many functions, in this case study, the function I’m going to reconfigure is the Move Money feature. In the past 2 years of using the app, there have been different features that have occasionally frustrated me as a user. With various app updates, some processes have gotten easier, but one of the tasks that I constantly find myself going on the app to do and inevitably getting frustrated with is the "Move Money" feature. As a designer, I'm always in problem-solving mode, so I determined to use my expertise in UX design to make transferring funds easier and more intuitive.
Research and Data Gathering
For this study, the user is going to be attempting to move $100 from savings to their credit card. I'm going to redesign the interface to make accomplishing this task simpler and more efficient.
I started by testing the app in its current form and using a group of 5 users to get some initial data. Ease-of-use will be determined by these criteria: the number of clicks to accomplish the task, the amount of time it took the user to accomplish the task, and whether or not there was hesitation or indecisiveness on the user's part while trying to transfer a specific amount to a specific acount.
After testing 5 users here was the inital results:
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Average number of clicks - 11 (two users made mistakes and had to re-do some steps.)
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Average amount of time to complete task - 21.37
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Each user hesitated at the list option after pressing the "move money" button.
Comparison to other apps:
Local Bank Account - the button on the home page takes you directly to the account transfer option.
Chime - The button on the home page leads to a list of different actions broken down into two categories: “Add money to chime” and “Transfer money and payments.”
Local credit union - Button on the home page takes you to a grid layout for their move money feature which is broken down into four categories.
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Transfer within bank
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External transfer
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Bill pay
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Manage
Streamlining the “Move Money” Feature
The “move money” option isn’t intuitive for users. When a user goes on with the express purpose of transferring from one account to another, the move money button on the bottom is the second obvious choice. If the user intends to move to the credit builder card, there’s a large green button on the top of the home page that says, “move money to credit builder” but, when clicked, it only gives the option to transfer from the checking account, and more-so it doesn’t give the option for the user to choose the amount they want to transfer.
Once the user goes back to the home page and selects the “move money” button they are brought to a list.
The issue breaks down into two areas:
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Too many options under the move money option.
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As I saw in my user testing, too many options can be confusing to the user if they are trying to move money in a hurry.
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The “move money to credit builder” option doesn’t allow for a custom amount. Leaving the user to have to go back, and do 5 other actions before being able to transfer a specific amount to the credit builder option.
Solutions:
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Split the move money option into two parts.
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Add two buttons to the bottom of the home page that says “Move Money” and “Transfers.”
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The option of paying other people is taken care of with the “Pay Anyone.” button that is already at the bottom of the home screen.
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When adding money to the credit builder, give the option for entering a custom amount if the amount offered doesn’t fit the user’s needs.
Prototyping and Testing
I redesigned the home screen by adding a "move money" button to the nav bar at the bottom of the page. And having the move money feature take the user directly to the money transfer page. I also redesigned the money transfer page to make the process of selecting accounts more intuitive for the user.
In my research, I noted that most users bypassed the large green button on the home screen, and opted to use the navbar on the bottom. When asked about it, they either had used it in the past and found it to be not helpful, or they didn't realize that it was a button they could interact with.
In it's current state, the "move money to credit builder" button only allows you to move a set amount, and if the user wants to move a specific about, it will take them back to the home screen. As you can see, in the image below.
I redesigned the button to make it more obvious what it's function is. I changed the verbiage to match the label on the nav bar, and added a drop shadow to this button, to help it stand out more.
I then updated the "Move money to Credit Builder" page so that it allows the user to enter a custom amount, this feature enables them to accomplish the task with ease.
After the user has a positive interaction with this feature, they will be more likely to use it again in the future.
Redesign Results
After implementing these changes, I tested this feature with users to see if the redesign was more intuitive.
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Users were able to accomplish their task in 5 clicks.
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It took an average of 9 seconds to accomplish the task.
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There was only slight hesitation of the users to ensure the correct accounts were selected.
Based on these criteria, these simple changes improved users productivity on the app significantly. Furthermore, the users claimed that the process was easier and less confusing.
Addtional App Changes
In the redesign for the move money feature, there were some features that I noticed were being under utilized, though they were very helpful. I made some changes to help these be more noticeable and intuitve for the user, though they aren't related to the "move money" feature, and thus I didn't test them. I believe these changes would help the app be even more user-friendly.
Changing the account settings button to and icon that is more universally understood.
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Adding a label to the existing account settings icon to indicate it's function to the user.
