top of page

Re-design PayPay Mobile Payment App

PayPay - The mobile payment app based in Japan.

8.1 conclusion.png
Introduction

This is a Five weeks project working closely with PayPay’s team.

PayPay is a mobile payments app based in Japan.

Their mission is to make cashless payments the primary method of payment in Japan. Currently the most popular mobile payment app with 36 million users and still counting.

About PayPay 

PayPay was a joint venture between SoftBank, Yahoo Japan and PayTM. PayTM is a hugely popular mobile payments app in India and Canada.

PayPay was established in 2018. At a little under 3 years old, PayPay may be young but have scaled and grown significantly.

PayPay has an extensive developer program aimed at helping companies introduce their products and services through the PayPay App. It’s one way to expanding the PayPay app's features and offerings.

The Problem

PayPay users typically spend little time exploring the app. PayPay is looking for ways to increase the daily active usages of the app.

Typical PayPay User behaviour
Frame 12808.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

PayPay app is highly efficient in completing a payment task. This efficiency is making it difficult to engage with PayPay’s customers to either promote new services or to get users to explore the PayPay app.

The Goals

The goals are to come up with a concept that would entice users to spend more time in the app.

-------------------------------------------------

Project Timelines
Frame 12809.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

Week 1 : -
User Research

With 36 million registered users, PayPay has an extremely varied age group and demographic. Due to this, PayPay is looking for potential solutions that cater to these core groups.
Since PayPay and its core competitors are all based in Japan, it will be difficult to conduct user research with Japanese people within a short time frame.
Hence, We use any available research can obtain about typical Japanese consumer behaviors as a starting point.
We’re looking for concepts that would entice a user to spend more time in the app.

Research Methods : -
#1 Desk Research

We collects, finds and reviews the publicly data on Google Playstore and IOS Apple store. We focusing on the user's comments and understand the demands and needs of consumers. Thus, we summaries problem of PayPay's products and services.

Desk Research summaries
Slide 3.1.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

Research Methods : -
#2 Competitive Analysis

Taking into consideration these are mobile apps used on the go, we did a similar analysis across all our competitors, which are Starbucks, lazada, Shopee, Ikea, Qoo10, Favepay and etc.

Frame 12810.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

Based on the competitive analysis, loyalty programme is a programme offers rewards, discounts, and other special incentives by retailers and other businesses designed to encourage repeat business and to increase users engagement. It is no longer new but is presently proven the trend and effectiveness of successful e-business strategies for well-known e-commerce like Starbucks, Shopee, Ikea, Credit Cards, and Fave.

-------------------------------------------------

Week 2 : -
Ideation and Brainstorming
1_6QyoiJUaRXyhVmg-Y7WNHA.gif
1_GY1201cShY2pIq_QxokCeg.gif

Ideation and brainstorming with teammates
(tools : google meet and Miro)

We did our ideation and brainstorming thru google meet and miro. We gathered all the insight to find out “why aren’t they not using the app.” and “how to keep user active”.

1_xV22rFnkZbYk9kA9-q3Z9Q.png

Brainstorming Ideas

The Proposal : -
PayPay Ninja Tiered Rewards System

Hence, we come up with the proposal which is PayPay Ninja Tiered Rewards System.

Frame 12811.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

How do become a PayPay Ninja?

Users will automatically become PayPay Ninja for the first month when user sign up. If the user meets any of the criteria (as shown on below), it will give the user the corresponding status for the next month for up to two (2) months.

Frame 12812.png

Copyright 2021 © Eilin Tan. All rights reserved.

What is PayPay Ninja Benefits?

User will be entitled for annual gift, which this is given to those who maintain status for 12 month.

For Examples : -

Silver Ninja will receive 240 + 480 coins = 720 coins over the next 12 month
(60 coins per month) if she/he maintains status.
If user status drops to Bronze Ninja, then he/she will get 240 coins /12 = 20 coins next month.

 Coins* — Refer to paypay currency. (Japan Currency)
b) 1 Coin is equivalent to 10 yen when used to pay paypay merchants
c) 1 Coin is equivalent to 8 yen when converting to cash deposite to your bank.

Ways to earn PayPay Coins:-

a) Earn 1 Coin for every 200 yen TOP-UP & SPENT to activate
b) Earn through Seasonal Deals4 to earn coins
c) Earn through Ninja Annual Gift.

Information Architecture
Frame 12813.png

-------------------------------------------------

Week 3 : -
Storyboards

After the initial ideation phase of a project. Storyboards can help turn one-line concept descriptions into detailed narratives and design.

The purpose of UX storyboards is to consider and communicate a sequence of states, rather than provide specific visual direction and Design. We decided to build Three (3) User Stories to demonstrate how someone might interact with a future product or service. What matters is the actions and emotions involved.

1_N5OKtxtVlK6udfDJVmPnjg.jpeg
1_XH8H304prAUTvXWnVNsTIw.png

Storyboard (Lo-Fi)
(Credit : Summer Seet , Eilin Tan)

Storyboards
1_gb-LQgkAyEAzzrn8IJ5GlQ.png

Final Storyboard User Stories 1 (Credit : Summer Seet)

1_gy4tHeYWmCU5wlcN1PPNzw.png

Final Storyboard User Stories 2 (Credit : Summer Seet)

1_XlDQCa_bU-RR5OkcaABdKQ (1).png

Final Storyboard User Stories 3 (Credit : Summer Seet)

Storyboard - User Stories

User Stories 1,  Kenji how to earning coins thru PayPay app

User Stories 2, Akiko share and received a voucher to earning more cashback coins thru PayPay app

User Storied 3, Akiko can share vouchers with the other parties, no voucher will be missed and waste!

-------------------------------------------------

Week 4 & 5 : -
Wireframes & Prototype
1.png

Use Case 1 : Top-up PayPay Wallet

2.png

Use Case 2 : Coin Exchange Deals

3.png

Use Case 3 : Rewards Information

4.png

Use Case 3 : In-store Payment

-------------------------------------------------

Week 6 : -
Usability Test

We conducted a usability test with 6 users. We separate it into two parts.

 

First part : User Interview

  1. What is PayPay app, this is a payment app for making purchases in Japan. Similar to Fave pay/ Grab Pay.

  2. Do you use any Payment app? such as fave pay, grab pay, google pay etc.

  3. Which payment app do you use?

  4. Why did you choose this particular payment app?

  5. How frequently do you use the payment app?

  6. What do majority of your payments constitute? (transport/ groceries/ food?) You can mention more than one.

  7. What features do you use the most on the payment app?

  8. Which payment app do you like and not like? why?

  9. Are you familar with in-app rewards?

  10. Do you like / dislike any app that comes with a rewards system? name the app.

  11. What do you like or dislike about rewards systems?

  12. What is one feature would you like to see in a payment app that would meet a need?

Second part : UI Testing

We will prepare some prompt question while conducting the UI Testing.

Prompt questions:-
 

  1. Top-up: Can you show me where will you go to add money into this account/wallet?

  2. Payment : Can you show me how you will use this app to pay for your product at a store?

  3. Balance : Can you check how much money you have?

  4. What do you think you can do with the coins?

  5. Rewards system: 
    ‘Offers’ icon — Can you check how you will go about finding deals? 
    ‘Coupon’ icon — Can you show me how you will use one of the coupons/vouchers you have collected?

The Objective

Objective 1 : To find out how appealing is a reward system in a payment app?

Objective 2 : User experience of the app functions that we created.


The objective of this session: test the navigation of the app and how easy is it to access these functions:- 

  1. Top-up

  2. Payment

  3. Paypay reward system

  4. check the balance

  5. coupon/offers

Key Takeaways from User Survey and Usability Testing
Tester Profile

a) All testers have used Mobile Payment App with rewards system 
b) 50% of testers use payment apps 2–3 times/ week (pre-covid)

What do they like about Rewards system?

  • Cashback

  • Coins to offset purchase

  • Member discounts

What makes good Rewards system?

  • Easy to understand

  • Cashback

  • Easy to apply the voucher

  • Location-based voucher notification

Finding & Solution
What are the findings?

  • Finding 1 : Rewards features not obvious enough

  • Finding 2: “The word “coins” is very confusing. Not sure whether it’s actual yen or part of the rewards system.” — User 05

  • Finding 3: Deals are not prominent enough. Users tend to overlook

  • Finding 4 : It is not clear user only needs to fulfill 1 of the 3 stated criteria to unlock next Ninja level

  • Finding 5: Allow user to cancel payment at any point of time during payment process

What are the solutions?

  • Solution 1 : Use color on the card to denote Ninja status. Added access from PayPay card to access PayPay rewards info

  • Solution 2 : The team decided to keep it as “coins” since cashback is in “yen”. And also “coins” associate currency better than other options such as “stars”

  • Solution 3 : Remove the mid section to make deals more visible

  • Solution 4: Updated the UI to make it clearer

  • Solution 5: Added the “Cancel” button

Slide 11.5.png
Slide 11.6.png
Slide 11.7.png
Slide 11.8.png
Slide 11.9.png
Prototype

After Usability Testing we had updated our UI Design, Here is the final prototype design.​

1.gif
2.gif
3.gif
4.gif
Key Takeaways

The rewards system helps to increase active usage in PayPay. The rewards concept must be simple to understand. User behavior data helps in targeted marketing.

Future Consideration

  • Validation of concepts in Japan

  • Location-based notifications

  • Rewards could tie in with merchant marketing campaigns

  • Set up metrics to monitor the effectiveness of the rewards system

- The End -

-------------------------------------------------

Recent Post :
bottom of page