Duration
April 2024
Role
UI/UX Designer
Team
Medini Chopra (Engineer)
Skills
Research Synthesis
Material Design System
Emotive Design
Systems Thinking
Concept Testing
// FINTECH, TECH4GOOD
Confusing payment UI isn't just inconvenient for low-income users; it's also high-risk
// INTRODUCTION
Digital payments are booming, but this is not good news for everyone
Digital payments have seen extraordinary growth in the Global South, especially India, where over 51% of adults now use mobile payments. This growth is driven by Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which has democratized cashless transactions.
Despite this progress, most research and innovation remains customer-centric. Merchants' needs receive limited attention, a serious problem for small-scale merchants whose livelihoods depend on technical adoption.
The merchant perspective is finally highlighted
While conducting a literature review on this topic in Human-Computer Interaction research, we came across a paper that was centered around the merchant experience: "Who is protecting us? No one!"
This paper describes the range of vulnerabilities faced by low-income merchants in India, making them susceptible to financial fraud.
Our project builds on this incredible research by Pranjal Jain, Rama Adithya Varanasi, and Nicola Dell, including their contribution of primary user research.
With rising competition from large-scale retailers and quick-commerce platforms, kirana stores face increasing pressure to modernize. For survival, they've begun adopting UPI apps like Google Pay.
However, most kirana owners come from modest backgrounds and lack the digital literacy required to interact with payment apps confidently. A minimal understanding of UPI architecture creates concern and reduces adoption rates.
// DEFINING THE PROBLEM
With academic research and the real why in our minds, we defined the problem and a realistic scope for the month-long project. We chose to focus on 1 of the 3 payment apps discussed in Jain et. al's work, Google Pay for its increasing rate of adoption.
// USER RESEARCH
Merchants face a concerning amount of vulnerabilities on payment apps
Jain, Varanasi, and Dell interviewed 34 participants (24 merchants, 10 agents that onboarded the merchants) about fraud challenges on UPI platforms. Turns out, merchants have multiple barriers with digital payments, right from accessing them in the first place.
Direct quotes from merchants especially highlighted financial vulnerabilities, and so we centered our project around this high-stakes scenario.
// DESIGN AUDIT
Google Pay from the eyes of a merchant
Before jumping into ideation, we wanted to first feel the app from a merchant's perspective. Due to time and research recruitment constraints, we chose to audit existing screens ourselves, building on a user journey map to identify where the experience breaks down.
A cognitive walkthrough revealed 3 specific problem areas:
Transaction validation is difficult
Hard-to-access or non-unique information means greater effort from a merchant to confirm transaction status
Missing urgency in actions
Defrauded merchants need immediate access to support and resources but this is overshadowed by promotional material
Lack of information transparency
Merchants can't estimate the scale or nature of the reporting process, which is critical data for a low-income worker
// DESIGN PROCESS
User persona
Representing a typical kirana store owner in suburban India, balancing community relationships with digital adoption challenges
User journey Map
Mapping emotional highs and lows from pre-transaction anxiety to post-fraud frustration, identifying opportunities for intervention
User flow Diagram
Visualizing the structure and functionality a merchant engages with during typical Google Pay usage, identifying cyclic issues and decision points where improvements could be made
Low-fidelity sketches
Sketching initial solutions based on the 3 pain points and user flow diagram, allowing me to experiment with validation patterns in design sprint exercises
// WORKING WITHIN CONSTRAINS
Material Design
Since Google Pay uses Material Design, I had to work with existing components while choosing appropriate versions to ensure nothing looked out of place. This required deep research into Material Design principles, component variants, and accessibility guidelines.
Core functionality
We were working with a very well-established application. We wanted to be mindful not to overwrite how it worked or any critical features. Our goal was to make the redesign as realistic as possible for implementation.
I collaborated with an engineer to assess technical feasibility at multiple points in the design process.
// FINAL DESIGNS
Google Pay, redesigned realistically and emotively
Transaction validation is difficult
-> Improve representation of transaction identifiers
Earlier signifiers are easy to fake and hard to recognise by merchants. New signifiers (profile image and elapsed time clock) cannot be reproduced easily and are visually perceptible.
Feasibility check
Google Pay already links to a user’s Gmail account and displays the associated profile image. This will just have to be transferred to the transaction status page.
Missing urgency in actions
-> Shorten user journey to support
An at-risk user will require the quickest path to assistance. Especially if it’s a suspected case of fraud, then all actions become time-sensitive. Shortcuts to fraud support reduce delay.
Lack of information transparency
-> Add multiple information points
In sensitive scenarios like scams and frauds, a user needs as much information as possible. Describing the resolution process and providing stage-wise updates builds trust.
// IMPACT
Across 3 weeks, I redesigned 3 critical user journeys for an underserved subset of users in the Google Pay community, validating my concepts with vendors themselves
During concept testing, we received positive feedback for the new experience, with vendors reporting increased confidence and less ambiguity in transaction validation.
We achieved our primary goals of redesigning the fraud prevention and support user journey, alongside our secondary goals of emotive design.
// RETROSPECTIVE
Inclusive design requires a deep level of empathy and connection with the end-user
My main takeaway was the importance of designing for the edge case; the users that get overlooked. It takes real skill to empathize with a perspective that's unfamiliar to you, especially when you might not have access to extensive user research.
This project taught me to translate systemic challenges into accessible design. The best solutions aren't the most innovative, they're the ones that make sense for the people who need them most.
If I had more time, I would…
Test real-time features in realistic scenarios to ensure they work appropriately in high-pressure, fast-paced environments
Expand our user personas beyond the kirana store use case to see how other sectors (healthcare, street vendors, etc.) interact with digital payments.
Evaluate other regional digital payment apps (PhonePe, PayTm) and see how these features could be applicable there.
Thank you for reading <3
Please reach out if this project resonated with you. We're currently trying to get our work reviewed by the Google Pay India team so any and all feedback is welcome.