NOOBILL SPLIT BILL
Noobill is an Australian Fintech startup based in Melbourne. Noobill is applying mobile and AI technology to redesign how people receive and manage their daily services with a far better digital experience and without bills. In this project, we were asked to add a split function to the present app.
Project OvervIew
CLIENT.
A lot of young people are living in a share house with housemates these days. When it comes to utility bills and rent share, it can be a headache, and sometimes it can break the friendship if not managed properly. Noobill can provide users with a simple to manage bill/rent split function, so the primary account holder can allocate different % to each housemate, and the housemates each will register in Noobill as normal user to pay the portion of the bills at the frequency they like. For the housemates, the portion of the main bill becomes their bill under the same service account.
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Noobill
TEAMMATES.
Sarina Shaw
Mike Gu
Shristi Jain
TIME.
6 Weeks
MY ROLE.
User Research, Information Architecture, Interaction, Visual Design, Prototyping & testing.
Project OBJECTIVES
- Identifying the needs and pain points of bill/rent share. How users are managing it now?
- Designing the bill split solution with wireframe and text copy based on Noobill App.
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The Problem
Housemates who feel unsure about the management of shared household bills want more visibility and control over the process but do not yet have a method that is easy and fully customisable to their needs.
Challenges
- Time (6 weeks)
- Remote limitations due to COVID-19
- Most up to date version of the app was not available yet.
CompetItor AnalysIs
It was very crucial for us to analyse our competitors in the market. We did research on four different applications out in the market with focusing on splitting money between household members. To figure out how our competitors platforms are designed and what opportunities we can have amongst them, how we can learn from them and how would we be able to fill the gaps in the market.
Research
All the research of this project has been conducted remotely due to limitations of COVID-19. We did 7 one-on-one interviews on video calls with shared household members and also reached out to a decent number of users by google survey and received a good number of answers. The research outcomes are:
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- Visibility and transparency of household bills and the status of payments would be valuable and reduce follow-ups.
- Accurately tracking bills, expenses and payments is a source of frustration.
- Trust is important, especially for those who share a bank account to manage and pay bills.
- Housemates not paying on time or not paying the correct amounts is frustrating.
- Sometimes housemates don’t have enough money to make payments, subsequently an "I owe you" situation arises and needs to be tracked.
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How MIght We...
- How might we provide visibility
and transparency over the entire process, so that users have clarity and control over their bills?
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- How might we provide users with a customisable experience, so they can easily manage their financial world?
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DefInIng The Problem
To define the problem we worked as a team used different workshops and methods. It was important for us top identify what users real needs are regarding their behaviours and habits in a shared household.
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AffInIty Map
In an affinity mapping workshop, to form the initial insights we used the findings collected from research and grouped them. It helped us to find out the key insights out of our research phase.
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Personas
Based on our research we have created 2 personas to represent the target users’ demographics of 18-26-year-olds and their bill splitting behaviors.
Our primary persona Sophie is 21, she is a student in Melbourne and she is currently renting with two of her girlfriends where she has the responsibility of managing and tracking bills.
Our secondary persona Cal is 23, he works in retail and has just moved out with his high school mates in the last 6 months.
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Empathy And Customer Journey Map
We categorised our research findings into seven key sections of an empathy map to help us better understand our users. From this map, we were able to empathise with our users and get a clear idea of
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• Demographics
• Behaviours
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Needs & Wants
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Market Comparisons/Competition
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Most importantly, the Empathy Map helped us to create a customer journey map, making it clear who we were designing the split bill feature for.
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Sophie is 21 and renting with two girlfriends where she is responsible for managing and tracking household bills. Her process is very manual and starts with her feeling frustrated having to manage the bills alone. Using a pen, paper, and calculator, she calculates and records each split in excel, informing housemates via text. She finds following up and reconciling her bank statements really frustrating.
Cal’s process of receiving bills is also manual. He starts with writing down bill details in a clear and understandable format. He sets payment reminders which he occasionally misses, making him anxious as he doesn’t want it to affect his relationship with his housemates. He is only able to settle his share when he manages his funds accordingly and missing dates don’t help at all. Cal does online research on how he can better manage to pay on time but many apps still require manual input which does not solve his case.
IdeatIon - BraInstormIng / Crazy 8 / MVP OvervIew
The team used brain-writing and a collaborative Crazy 8s session to ideate several possible solutions to our HMW questions.
To assess our ideas and ensure the ones we proceeded with met the 1- month development criteria of our client, we gathered all our ideas onto an MVP Matrix.
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DesIgn DecIsIons
Our design ideas and solutions were based on our brainstorming sessions and MVP matrix to cover users needs and also our problem statement. I am going to take you through the solutions we proposed.
- Explainer pages for first-time users to help them to understand the key features of this service.
- Customisable notifications to control their information, users may want to keep a close eye on all activity or set and forget — the choice is theirs.
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- The split billing function to give users the power to customise, calculate and set one time or recurring payments.
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- The group split bill function gives users the ability to manage, track and categorise bills of each group and the group activity page which allows users to have a track of upcoming, past, and unpaid bills.
- A reward system to encourage users to manage and pay their bills on time.
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- The rainy day round-ups feature to allow users to round-up their direct debit repayments by $2, $5 or a custom amount, setting a maximum to put aside for a rainy day.
WIreframIng and Low-fI PrototypIng
Wireframing and Low-Fi prototyping were started right after design decisions. All the design components were based on the current application design system.
User Flow
Using our MVP matrix, we re-worked our ideas so that they would seamlessly fit in with the existing user flow of the app prior to a user splitting their bills.
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Primary user flow
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Secondary user flow
Gamification and Roundups flow
DESIGN SYSTEM
We were provided with the design flow of the existing Noobill application by the client. Later we made some little changes to the system as it wasn’t clear enough for users.
NOOBILL splIT BILL
The splitting bill function gives users the ability to manage and customise their shared household bills and also have control over the process without complications. It allows users to have better management of their spendings.
EXPLAINER PAGES
The first idea we had is to show explainer pages, to help users understand the key features of this service, how it works and what benefits the user will enjoy. First-time users will be presented with a series of explainer screens to introduce the new split billing feature. These screens will highlight key elements and will show users how the feature works so they are able to use it to its fullest potential.
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PROPERTY AND BILL VIEW
Users want a customisable experience, and the dual view delivers this. Users can now view their bills on an individual level to see both past and upcoming bills, while the property view gives users an overview of their property groups, allowing them to manage their services and bills holistically.
PROPERTY GROUP
A new level of visibility and control over your financial world. Property Groups allows users to view property expenses, savings and services all in the one place – providing more and better information to effectively manage finances. Property Groups also allows users to manage members, track late repayments and member activity.
PROPERTY ACTIVITY
We discovered that visibility over group member actions was missing from many of the current methodologies. To remedy this, we designed a simple solution that records and updates group activity. From total expenses, noobill savings, pending bills and user actions such as repayments, unsuccessful direct debits and the addition of new group bills. Every group member has visibility over the progress and payment of their collective bills.
SPLITT SERVICE
Splitting your bills 
has never been easier. The split service feature allows users to share expenses without having to stress over tracking or following-up on “who owes who.” Users simply select members from their contact list, use the interactive sliding tool to easily assign a percentage or dollar amount to each person and then invite members to join — that’s it!
CUSTOMISABLE NOTIFICATIONS
Customisable notifications provides users with the power to choose what notifications they want. Get notified when a property member has made a successful repayment or when a new bill has arrived. This feature gives users the ability to stay informed, or set and forget — they decide.
GAMIFICATION AND REWARD SYSTEM
An experimental feature that we decided to design is a reward system. This is to encourage users to manage and pay their bills on time with the incentive of unlocking milestones that offer points to redeem seasonal coupons. At a time only 2 or 3 offers of different point values need to be made available. We really think this gamification element will motivate users to engage with the application as well as strive towards their personal goals.
raIny day ROUND-UPS
During our research, we found that a source of frustration for many was when housemates were not able to pay their bills on time due to a lack of funds. The rainy day round-ups feature is designed to allow users to round-up their direct debit repayments by $2, $5, or a custom amount, setting a maximum to put aside for a rainy day. This amount can be used in case of an emergency when funds are low, this means users will be better prepared for upcoming bills, and those sharing an expense with others won’t have to pick up the slack.
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Users can find information about round-ups and rewards on their profile.
USABILITY TESTING
In our usability sessions, users were asked to complete some actions and they were observed while finishing the action. Many things were clear after the user testing and iterations were applied. Following the iterations, we had another user testing session to make sure our changes are applied correctly.
InsIghts And DesIgn IteratIons
The insights and design iterations based on user testings are:
InsIght:
DesIgn Amendments:
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During testing, we discovered that the confirmation screen once a user has declined a bill did not correspond with the action taken, which was confusing.
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The solution was to update the copy on this confirmation screen, making it clear to the user that their action was successful.
InsIght:
DesIgn Amendments:
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When we asked users what the Rainy Day Round-ups were and how it worked, they were unclear and did not understand the exact of using this feature.
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To address this issue, we added an information pop-up with further details and rules about the feature.
InsIght:
DesIgn Amendments:
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During testing, it was not 100% clear to users what this screen, manage late payments was for and how it functioned.
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We added a timed pop-up for first-time users and a clickable information icon that displayed details on how this feature works.
InsIght:
DesIgn Amendments:
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Once a secondary user signed up to Noobill, there was a little confused about what the next step in the flow was.
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To fix this issue an overlay pop-up window was designed that directs users to click on the bills icon to view their first bill.
DesIgn Amendments:
InsIght:
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During testing, some users were not immediately able to locate the settings icon once a bill had been split.
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To make the setting icon more visible, the icon colour was changed to a darker shade from the colour palette.
DesIgn Amendments:
InsIght:
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When requesting a split adjustment from the primary account holder, some users commented that it would be easier to request the adjustment using the same slider tool used during the primary flow.
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To make the flow more seamless for users, we added the slider tool to this screen, allowing users to request the adjustment easily.
DesIgn Amendments:
InsIght:
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When we asked users to navigate to their profile, some users clicked the profile icon once landing on this screen.
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To make it clear that this is the profile screen, we updated the profile icon to ”edit profile” making it more understandable for users.
AREAS OF IMPROVEMENT
Following the iterations, we had another user testing session to make sure our changes are applied correctly. There are some areas of improvement to be considered in the future.
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- Consider opening up the split feature to other expenses (other than those sent via Noobill suppliers).
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- Set up partnerships with businesses for the gamification rewards.​
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- Design all settings flow to ensure a smooth transition from the design to the development team.​
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- Consider adding animation screens shown to users when they are presented with new features, this will help them understand the features and their relationship to the app as a whole.
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WHAT I LEARNED
In this project working on every step of it, I realised how crucial it is to fix your mistakes along the way. To achieve a high quality product in a short time, we should iterate while moving and do what is need to be done at the right time. It is surprising how efficiency would get improved which leads us to a higher quality product.