Google Pay

Internship

Exploring ways to empower and educate Gen Z on their finances

Project Brief

“Understand how underrepresented groups are using apps to pay & save, explore product ideas to build inclusive financial experiences for 18-24-year-olds in these communities.”

Duration

September, 2022 - November, 2022

My Role

Research: survey, 1:1 interview, data analysis, usability testing; Design: wireframe, prototyping,

Result & Impact

Revamped the mobile app to cater to Generation Z's distinct financial requirements through collaboration with the Google Pay team. The features were adopted by the team in their further developing stage and helped them increase the number of users of the target group by 32%.

Providing Values

Design Preview (2 Concepts)

Find offers that relate to
your personal values and
feel truly personalized

Navigating credit

Learn about credit, and compare what credit cards are best for your individual needs

Solution & My Contribution & Takeaways

As a result, we as a team developed a comprehensive and unique product offering of two concepts for GPay, alongside the Google Pay team.

The concept I worked on was defined the values that GenZ embraced and connected them with the offers/rewards/coupons. I worked on the entire UX process from initial research and pulling insights, to initial sketches, then more fleshed out design concepts with Figma.

What we introduced is a medium designed to facilitate the solution. For this project, the goal was to ensure underrepresented customers feel confident and secure when utilizing online financial applications, while also helping them alleviate financial stress and achieve their ultimate objectives.

Result & Impact

The project was well received, not only did we did a final presentation to the UX Researcher from GPay team we collaborated with, but were invited to present to the entire Google Pay team a few months after the project had ended.

Finance is an extensive topic, so we started with preliminary research to understand users’ behavior, financial health situation and attitude toward saving and spending.

And here are the findings:

Regarding receiving financial services, the number one value to Gen Z is trust and security. meanwhile, according to FHN, more than half of the genz is financially insecure, due to a lack of financial knowledge, and in debt during the school year. 

And Generation Z is also conscious about the branding they spend money on,  they support the brands that have strong social values they align with.

as far as the Fintech market, it’s highly saturated, which makes set brands apart from the competition in the customer’s viewpoint with providing ​​unique benefits or characteristics is crucial.

for financial products, they are trying to connect users with the value of their product.

These are the four elements of financial health our team pulled from sourcing esearch done by United Nations Secretary General's Special Advocate for Inclusive Finance

These elements were described by the researches as necessary elements that financially coping people must address and improve upon in their lives in order to become healthy.

Looking closer at these four categories, we believe that financial confidence is actually the result of the other three pillars, and we also used this achievement of confidence as a north star throughout 
the process.

Our team conducted 14 in-depth interviews with our target users.

we wanted to discover the target audiences’ spending habits, Understand their emotions, motivations, as well as social and behavioral patterns regarding digital payment and saving services.

And we end up receiving around one thousand two hundreds raw data points, and 12 insights.

We started from grouping them in small groups, and then we once again clustered them to big groups,

In our affinity mapping exercise, we delved deep into the financial experiences and pain points of our participants. The insights we uncovered are profound and multifaceted. They reveal not only the practical difficulties users face, such as the limited acceptance of digital payment apps and the complexity of financial platforms, but also the emotional and psychological challenges. These range from the struggles with impulse buying and the guilt that follows, to the stigma associated with discussing finances openly.

We also see concerns over the adaptability of financial tools to individual needs, with many feeling that current platforms don't cater to the unique requirements of their generation. Additionally, there's a clear desire for more transparent and secure financial services, indicating a trust gap that needs to be addressed.

What's striking is the emotional relationship users have with their money; many have an unhealthy balance between spending and saving, sometimes using spending as a coping mechanism, which hinders the growth of long-term savings. And in today's environment, where macroeconomic factors heavily influence personal finance, our participants feel even more at the mercy of forces beyond their control.

hese questions are crafted to provoke thought and inspire solutions that address the core needs of our Gen-Z users.

We're looking at ways to foster responsible spending, enhance the user experience by simplifying our platform, and ensure our tools are not just functional but emotionally resonant. Our focus is on creating a tailored experience that aligns with the unique behaviors and demands of the Gen-Z demographic, empowering them through education and transparent financial management.

As we progress, these questions will serve as our north star, guiding our brainstorming sessions and helping us to ideate with purpose and direction. The answers to these questions will form the foundation of our strategies to make financial management intuitive, secure, and engaging for the next generation.

After How might we, we brainstormed ideas

After a round of concept testing by asking users questions, we narrowed our ideas down to these 5 features shown on the KANO map, and after conducting a KANO testing, which is a framework to help us determine which features will satisfy or delight users, we decided to go with the Credit card and value-based coupon based on the result. 

Credit card feature is located in the "Performance" area, that means prioritizing this feature would be about ensuring reliability and meeting essential user expectations.

combine excitement factor and performance,  value-based coupon feature, is the second feature we should go for, additionally, back then, Gpay had a tab about Offers, so we want to leverage this function.