FlockPay, a mobile app for Android & iOS both platforms. It is
specially designed for tutors, coaches, apartment groups and small to medium businesses.
The goal of this project was to design a good user experience by designing a mobile app
to map the solution for group payment problems.
Branding
Logo.
Color.
Typeface.
The Problem
Collecting a group payment & tracking it, is still a nightmare for most of the small to medium
businesses. For instance, a tutor may struggle to collect the payment from the students. So a coach
or a local residency apartment secretary to track the status of the payment which has made by the
society individuals.
The Challenges
To create a platform that can help to send payment bills to a group and track the status of
those payments as well. This platform should have group engagement features like chat,
sending bills, polls, event calendar, etc. along with a payment system.
This common platform can be used by small business holders/vendors. So it should also have
accessibility features to set the default language as regional.
Research & Analysis
There are lots of mobile apps in the app market which have these features. But most of them are
either confusing and misleading(bad user experience) or lacking in important features.
I did my research and found that medium business holders like bigger coaching tutors use account
management and CRM software to manage the customers and payments. But they need a mobile app to
engage with their students/customers.
For small business holders/vendors, collecting the payment is still a primary concern.
So we have split the problem into two categories. Payment collection, status tracking, and chat are
marked as the top priority feature which is the primary problem for small business holders/vendors.
On the other hand, student/user engagement features like poll, events, attendance, etc. are marked
as low priority.
Okay, so now we have Steve here.
He's 34 years old.
He runs a music learning academy.
A total of 80 students are enrolled in his academy, which he coaches in 4 batches.
He struggles with fee collection and student engagement.
Expectations
Steves needs an app that could help him in fee collection and student engagement both. Also,
managing the payments and sending the reminder will be a plus.
Ideation & Design
Now we have some information and a basic idea about the app, based on that we can design the sketch
of the app. Before that, we need to list out app's prime features.
Send A Bill
A user can send payment bill to an entire group or selected individuals within a
group
Payment Reminder
A user can send payment reminder to the billed users
Pay A Bill
A user can also pay a bill individually or all together, if there are multiple bills
to pay.
Add An Event
A user can create an event and send invite to an entire group or selected
individuals.
Conduct A Poll
A user can conduct a poll within a group. One can choose among multiple type of poll
questions
Group Chat
Users can have a text conversation within a group like any other chat app
Mark Attendance
A user can mark the daily attendance under a group and the admin can track that
File Sharing
A user can share a multimedia file in a group chat
Okay, so now we can draw a rough sketch to get more clarity.
First thing first, this app should be user-centric. All the services are wrapped around the
group because all the features can only be applicable for a certain number of people(a
group) and it's easy to track a group's activity rather than an individual's. So it's
mandatory to create a group from the contact list.
All of the features like sending a payment bill, paying a bill, sending a payment reminder,
conduct a poll, add an event, marking the attendance, notifications, and calendar. can be
accessed inside as well as outside the group.
In the bottom navigation, I prefer to keep five links. Which are home, payment,
add button (hotlink to access features inside a group), calendar and profile respectively.
Now we can alter the wireframe.
Meanwhile, we have a blueprint of the app as a strong foundation. Now we can
build a UI on top of this foundation.
But what if the end-user doesn't have this app installed? What if the user's mobile no. is
not registered in the app database?
In this case, the user should receive an SMS. Which contains a link and a relevant message to
make the payment through a browser.
Usability Testing
The prototype is not fully functional though, but usability testing can be conducted to see where a user encounter problems and experience confusion. If more people encounter similar problems, recommendations will be made to overcome these usability issues.
So, now we gonna conduct Explorative Usability Testing on 3 users, typically while they are being observed by a researcher
Before a new product is released, explorative usability testing can establish what content and functionality a new product should include to meet the needs of its users.
Users test a range of different services where they are given realistic scenarios to complete which helps to highlight any gaps in the market that can be taken advantage of and illustrate where to focus design effort.
Testing Feedback
We collected the feedback from all the users. The common flaw in designing was the flow of the app, while completing a task user had no option to choose if something gets failed. In other words, the flow was following linear process instead of a circular cycle.
Secondly, users suggested to have regional languages to set as default language.
