On Demand Pay

Leading design for a high-impact payment solution

80% of U.S. workers live paycheck to paycheck, and 1 in 4 don’t set aside monthly savings. Our clients were either using third party vendors for instant payment solutions or none at all. We integrated instant payment features into our app, providing users with quick access to their earnings.

As the lead designer, I crafted a seamless mobile experience by focusing on skeching, prototypes, and visual design, resulting in a product that now processes over 2 million transactions annually.

My role in the project

My primary responsibility was to design an app that strategically aligned with the organization’s business needs while fitting seamlessly into our mobile system. This involved developing mobile sketches and wireframes and establishing a visual direction consistent with our app and other fintech applications. I utilized visual moodboards and collaborated with engineers to create coded prototypes, refining the visual direction as necessary. Addressing mobile design challenges without a standardized system required extensive collaboration with mobile designers and a thorough understanding of our existing mobile app ecosystem.

Project Phases

1. Design Discovery. Understanding user needs and problem space
2. Sketching and Ideation. Working through ideas in low-fi
3. Concepting & Refinement. Building concepts to be developed
4. Stakeholder Alignment. Ensuring strategic alignment with business
5. Mobile App Launch. Release to users

Design discovery

I needed to get consensus and alignment from our stakeholders on both aesthetic and functionality. I did some moodboarding exercises and looked out at the competitive landscape to begin to hone in on the visual direction we wanted for the app. This also allowed me to get exposure to common patterns in the financial tech space that I could reference later in the project.

Sketching and ideation

There were shifting requirements through the project and undiscovered edge cases in the initially designed wireframes which meant I needed to continually refine and revise the direction. I went through an exploration of various patterns and concepts through light sketching in order to try and push my concepts. This phase is an important step in my creative process and often happens at various stages. I worked through some different ideas, refining the main screen and continued to explore other areas in the experience.

Concept creation and refinement

There was opportunity to push both visuals and interaction design. I decided to go for a simpler and more user-friendly style. I couldn’t reinvent the wheel in an existing design framework, but understanding and balancing how you can push a design while staying aligned to a system is one of my bigger strengths. I played around a bunch with different iterations of the home screen and tried different multiple interaction patterns like sliders or radio selectors for the app that would be more delightful for users to interact with.

Aligning with the business vision

Given we were launching a new product, our leaders gave valuable input on app details—emphasizing aesthetics and layout. Acknowledging constraints, they gave feedback I could take to push the concepts for improvement.

I got everyone onboard with the design, finding a sweet spot that aligned well with similar apps but stood out visually in a crucial part of the application. To ensure a smooth user experience, I conducted very brief usability testing with people who have used similar apps, addressing any major concerns.

Configuration and settings management

Our admins needed to manage global and individual settings for the service, so we added a new configuration space in the desktop experience. One of the challenges in this area was finding simple language and descriptions that helped our users understand the various options they could control like Employee Access and Transaction Limits. We also spent a fair amount of time deciding how the service should be defaulted for clients (always on/off), and how we could give users the ability to quickly toggle employees.

Mobile App Launch

The On Demand Pay service was built into our main application so we launched it with an app update. We launched it internally first to pressure test and we were happy to see over $4.2 million in total transaction amounts over only a very small subset (26) of our clients within the first year. The average transactions were $179 dollars, and the highest percentage users were hourly employees (81%).It was an exciting launch, and the work we put into the app was well received across our organization and by our clients.