Thryve Merchant

Task

Find out the challenges facing business owners in Kenya who are trying to use subscription based pricing and come up with a solution that makes it easy for them to create and share subscriptions payment links.

My role

I was in charge of the entire design process for the merchant side of the business from identifying user needs to creating the final designs.

Team

I worked with a software engineer.

Tools

Figma, Maze, Google Forms

Duration

March 2022 - Present

Problem Statement and Goals

Most payment platforms in Kenya do not support subscription based payment models yet a lot of business owners, especially those with tech or tech-enabled businesses are interested in being able to create recurring payments. As a result, a lot of business owners experience high churn rate because they have to reach out to their customers every time they want to process payments in order to continue providing services or goods.

The goal of this project is to create a simple way for businesses to create recurring payment links that they can share with their customers or put on their websites. This will make it easier for them to collect recurring payments and retain customers. This also makes it easier for them to scale their businesses.

Solution Summary

Below is the high fidelity prototype that I created that shows how merchants can create recurring payment links for subscription-based offers.

Product Definition

The product definition stage involved weekly discussions with the founder to determine the value proposition of the product.

From the discussions, the main value propositions that would be offered by Thryve mobile app are:

Make it easy for merchants to create and share subscription payment links
Enable merchants to easily edit, activate, deactivate or delete payment links
Show analytics for subscriptions such as growth and churn rates

User Research and Key Findings

The main goals of the user research were to identify different needs, pain points, and goals of business owners when it comes to creating payments for their products and services.

We had individual video interviews with 4 business owners. Below is the summary of the key hypotheses and findings.

Research Analysis

User Segments

From the. user research, we came up with the following user segments:
- Saas entrepreneurs who wanted to have monthly recurring payments
- Tech-enabled service entrepreneurs and consultants with recurring services

Journey Map

I created the journey map to show the whole experience of a user, from the first time they hear about Thryve until they use it, and even after signing up.The journey map also shows different feelings and thoughts the users will have throughout the process so that later we can reflect to them on the design.

Ideating and Designing

Opportunities from Research

After doing the user and market research and analyzing the user segments, we came up with the following opportunities to solve the pain points of our users.

Below is a breakdown of some of the pain points and solutions that would be implemented on our design.

Sketches

I came up with sketches to showcase ideas for the mobile app. Here are some of the sketches.

Wireframes

After getting feedback on the sketches, I used Figma to create wireframes to establish the structure and layout of the content in different screens.

Below is an image of the main wireframes.

Low-Fidelity Prototype

I then created a low fidelity prototype that I used to test out the design. The GIF below shows the flow of the low-fidelity prototype.

Prototype Feedback and Updated Wireframes

I tested the prototype with the engineer and 2 users and I got the following feedback:

Put an overview of the key features in the home page so that users easily know what they could use the app for
Show active and inactive payment links
Show subscriber growth rate and churn rate for each recurring payment
Give options for users to edit, deactivate or delete payment links
Add a link for users to provide feedback

I used the feedback to create the updated wireframes below.

Design Style Guide

I created the design and brand style guide to ensure consistency and cohesiveness of the high-fidelity designs.

High-Fidelity Designs

After getting positive feedback on the updated wireframes, I created the following high-fidelity designs.

High-Fidelity Prototype

Using the high fidelity desings, I created a high fidelity prototype that shows the user flow and functionality.

User Testing and Validation

I tested the high fidelity prototype with 3 users. Here is the feedback that I got:

What worked well

The flow was direct and intuitive for users
Easy to add and remove payment links

Users found showing subscriber growth and churn rate to be a useful indicator of how their business is doing

What could be improved

Adding a back feature so that users can easily move back and forth
Animated interactions to guide the user and make the experience exciting

Use graphs for analytics instead of words

Metrics

Below are some of the metrics that we would have measured had the app been launched :

User retention rate
Number of payment links created by users

Frequency of use of payment links
Churn rate before and after using app

Subscriber growth rate before and after using app

Next Steps

Work on the feedback given
Add interactions to make the user experience delightful

Work on the other features of the app such as analytics that are connected to the recurring payments

Personal Reflections and Learnings

Although I had previously created responsive websites and web apps, this was my first mobile app design and my first fintech product. While the design principles still remain the same, I learned a lot of new things about designing apps for mobile. I will continue working on the other features of the app to gain more practical mobile design skills.