Splitwise

Splitwise

Splitwise

Simplifying the user flow to add shared expenses & adding new category features to increase the conversation rate to Pro

Project category

User Research

UX Design

UI Design

User testing

Tool

FigmaJam

Figma

Google Form

Dovetail

Maze

Useberry

Role

Product Designer

Team

Sako Shimohira

Nicola Fiona Doll

Project timeline

2023, 10 weeks

Project category

User Research

UX Design

UI Design

User testing

Tools

FigmaJam

Figma

Google Form

Dovetail

Maze

Useberry

Role

Product Designer

Team

Sako Shimohira

Nicola Fiona Doll

Project timeline

2023, 10 weeks

About the app

Splitwise helps people keep track of their shared expenses with flatmates, friends, and family. The app organises shared expenses so that everyone can see who paid what and how much they owe to each other. For example, sharing a vacation, splitting rent, or paying someone for lunch.

During Memorisely's UX/UI bootcamp, I worked with my team partner Nicola to improve the user flow to add shared expenses and the group overview UI, and we also added category features to increase the conversion rate to Pro.

Business goal

In order to proceed with this case study, we have set the business goal of Splitwise to increase the conversation rate to their paid product. This is important because we wouldn't know which direction all the improvements should contribute towards otherwise.

Research

Survey

In order to identify problem spaces, we have conducted a survey and distributed it to people who have used Splitwise before.

Since we couldn't not gather enough data through the survey, we also went through the app reviews and used them as a voice of users.

Synthesising

After gathering the input from users, we have synthesised all the data in order to find problematic points in apps that user finds frustrating to use.

Problem

Complex flow

Users found that inputting an expense and unevenly dividing it was overly complex and frustrating

Complex flow

Users found that inputting an expense and unevenly dividing it was overly complex and frustrating

Complex flow

Users found that inputting an expense and unevenly dividing it was overly complex and frustrating

Minimum categories

Users felt categorisation lacks some useful features

Unclear tracking

Users found tracking all the shared expenses challenging

No interest in Pro

Many of the users weren't interested in Pro features

After conducting research, we have identified a number of issues that users have encountered. We have focused on addressing the most significant problems among the many.

Benchmarking

As part of our research, we selected a direct competitor and an indirect competitor of Splitwise and conducted a benchmarking analysis.

For a direct competitor, we selected Tricount, which I've experienced previously.

For a indeirect one, we selected an app from the bank apps that Nicola has used before.

With this analysis, we identified Splitwise's strengths and possible areas for improvement by comparing it to its competitors. This information was beneficial to us during the ideation phase.

Information Architecture

We've also created the Information Architecture of the latest version of Splitwise. We thoroughly examined the app, familiarizing ourselves with its structure and the location of its data.

During this exercise, we noticed that the same information was displayed on multiple screens unnecessarily. I got the impression that the app seemed to be designed more from a database perspective rather than considering the needs of its users.

Ideation

Following our research, we brainstormed ways to tackles the issues we uncovered and encourage users to try the pro feature. To achieve this, we utilized two techniques: mind mapping and Crazy 8.

After the ideation, we have decided to focus on the following ideas to tackle the four problem areas identified in our research.

Complex flow

Complex flow

Complex flow

Simplified flow

Simplified flow

Simplified flow

Simplify the steps users need to go through when adding an expense

Improve the interface with clearer design so that users know what to do

Minimum categories

Enhanced category experience

Improve the interface design for the category page

Custom category

Favourite category

Minimum categories

Enhanced category experience

Complex flow

Complex flow

Complex flow

Clearer design

Clearer design

Clearer design

Get rid of unnecessary features

Improve the interface with clearer design so that users can easily see who paid what

No interest in Pro

No interest in Pro

No interest in Pro

Show what they could do

Show what they could do

Show what they could do

A blurred sneak peak of spending insight feature from Pro

Making custom category and favourite category as Pro features

Design

User flow

Prior to beginning low-fidelity wireframing, we outlined the current user flow in the Splitwise, then proceeded to outline the enhanced user flow.

The original flow

After outlining the process, we noticed that splitting expenses unequally requires many steps, making the process quite complex.

The improved user flow

Low fidelity wireframing

Based on the improved user flow I outlined, I created the wireframes.

Simplified flow

Simplify the steps users need to go through when adding an expense

Enhanced category experience

Show what they could do

Improve the interface design for the category page

Custom category

Favourite category

Making custom category and favourite category as Pro features

Unclear tracking

Show what they could do

Get rid of unnecessary features

Improve the interface with clearer design so that users can easily see who paid what

A blurred sneak peak of spending insight feature from Pro

High fidelity design and Prototyping

After creating the wireframes, we moved on to developing high-fidelity screens in order to enhance the user interface. Following that, we proceeded with prototyping to prepare for a usability test in the next phase.
The entire prototype can be viewed here.

Simplified flow

Enhanced category experience

Show what they could do

Unclear tracking

Show what they could do

Usability testing

After finishing the prototypes, we organized a usability test using Useberry. To do this, I tested out three different tools in their free versions: Maze, UsabilityHub, and UseBerry. Ultimately, Useberry proved to be the most suitable option for this specific case study.

Next step

Coming soon

Learnings

Coming soon

© Sako Shimohira 2023