Skills and Tools
1. Totally self experience
2. Ask Around
2. Adobe XD
My User Habit:
- The app is for paying and collecting money from friends only
- No business transactions.
- Do not use to pay merchants. (shopping online or offline)
- Account balance usually not more than $2,000
- No business transactions.
- Do not use to pay merchants. (shopping online or offline)
- Account balance usually not more than $2,000
My account:
- Unverified Account
- Annual pay and receive limit: $25,000
- Annual top up limit: $25,000
- Annual transfer to bank limited: $100,000
- Top up by credit card only
- Connected bank account to transfer money back to bank only.
- Annual pay and receive limit: $25,000
- Annual top up limit: $25,000
- Annual transfer to bank limited: $100,000
- Top up by credit card only
- Connected bank account to transfer money back to bank only.
Hypothesis:
Business Aspect:
1. PayMe app was applied to be one of the payment tools for consumption voucher, that implies they want people to use the app for transaction with merchants.
2. Instead of the consumption voucher, company wants users to keep more money in the account for transactions, as more transaction happens within PayMe, they can get more data about consumers’ buying habit.
3. If users keep more money in the app, they will have a higher rate to use the app for different transactions, e.g., shopping online or offline.
User Aspect:
1. News about security breach affect the confidence to put large amount of money or connect bank account in PayMe.
2. Paying by QR code to merchants is not a usual way to pay for Hong Kong people.
3. Quick and easy top-up could allow user to top-up the exact amount of money that they are going to pay.
4. To encourage user to keep more money in the app, reliable functions that can build users confidence are important.
What made me think in the app?
1. Why there are no pop-up notification from PayMe app when someone I know pay money to me through the app.
2. The balance is not memorable, or different from the last time when I open the app, it confuses me about the actual balance I have in the app, and I doubt if the amount is correct.
3. Tried to trace the payment record to confirm the balance is correct, unfortunately there are only current account balance, no matter how far I calculate the previous transaction, I still doubt the balance validity.
Possible Solutions:
1. Notifications on mobile phone!!
Not Email!! This is a mobile app and users only access this on mobile phone, using email notification will divert users to email app but not PayMe app, they will have less chance to open PayMe app to check the incoming money, not to mention the app need to manually refresh to update the transaction information.
Creating a notification pop up on mobile when someone send money to your account should be an easy move and bring huge value to the users.
Reason: users will not confuse to see the amount of money change with number of transactions happen since they last open the app?
2. Regular balance shown in the app. (Pic.1 & 2)
Put a balance number for the users, let them track the balance, can make them feel save about their money in the account. For a frequent user, you can put the balance next to the date to show the balance at the end of that day. Therefore, users can know the changes in the account, and everything are trackable. For non-active users, just put a regular update balance, maybe on 1st day of a month, and provide the same function to users.
Pic.1
Pic.2
How do I use “competitors’ platform”?
I personally use AlipayHK before and currently using ZA Bank and PayMe app, however I use ZA Bank for shopping (online and offline) and do money transactions with my friends only on PayMe.
Whenever I need to spend money with ZA Bank, I will top-up the necessary amount of money direct from my bank which only takes a few seconds to complete the action, after that I open apple pay and choose ZA card to complete transaction with seller, which allows me to skip the doubt about my remaining balance. Even if I have put money into the account beforehand, I can still track the amount by deducting the amount from my last top-up, things are trackable and make me feel safe to use it, but I cannot find the same experience on PayMe app.
About AlipayHK, the reason I stopped using is because it requires to top up with credit card, but I do not want to spend with credit card, therefore I chose not to use AlipayHK neither.
Incidents happened that expose another quality issue:
While I am working on this exercise, and as I told I am an active PayMe user (for transactions with friends), an incident happens while I am opening the app and showing a confusing balance on top of the app.
In Pic.3, it is a screen capture I made on 8-Oct-2021, the total balance is $1058.35, with a last transaction from my friend Cheung by giving me $438.00. A day after another friend gave me $188.00, so I open my PayMe app to check the balance. However, when I open the app, I did not see any changes on my app, the balance still $1058.35 with last payment from Cheung, I intuitively refresh the app by scrolling up manually and scary things happen, there are two new balances show up! (Pic.4, screen capture on 9-Oct-2021) one from Yu — $124.00 on 4-Oct-2021, and one from Lau — $188.00 on 9-Oct-2021, and at that moment I doubt whether the total balance is correct, so I open check the previous screen capture (pic.3) and found that the balance is incorrect by adding $1058.35 with $124.00 & $188.00. I double check and find that only the amount $188.00 was added up from $1058.35, in this situation I could only trust that the $124.00 was already added up into total balance in Pic.3, but the transactions weren’t there because I haven’t refreshed the app manually, but how come the total balance do refresh itself but not the transactions? I actually can accuse PayMe have not process the $124.00 to my account with these evidence, nevertheless if we think about the possible solutions I suggest above, if there is a sectional balance shows next to the date 4-Oct-2021 with $1058.35 after I refresh the app, all doubts and distrust issues are all gone as I could see the calculations, and even calculate backward to last sectional balance to confirm the amount is correct.
Pic.3
Pic.4
To Conclude:
PayMe app is the first easy transaction app created in Hong Kong while the fintech advancement happened all over world, with background of HSBC I really hope it can be a dominant product in Hong Kong and become an accessory app that bundle with HSBC brand in order to spread out into the world, unfortunately we can still see some minor faults and design problems of it and it seems struggles to position itself in the market, hope this feedback could reach out to decision makers of PayMe and may help the product development.
End of Case Study - PayMe - Mobile App Review
