Cardbay Case Study

Problem

I suspect the problem is people with gift cards often struggle to manage them and forget to use them; therefore, the gift cards go unused.

Solution

After doing user research, I found that everyone I interviewed had the same goal to not waste money. I also found that they have common pain points of having too many gift cards which are difficult to carry with them all the time and also forgetting to use their gift cards all together. Someone I interviewed said something that really stood out, "There seems to be a lot of planning around using a gift card".

Research

I conducted several interviews to learn more about how people use and manage their gift cards, here are my findings:

Goals:

Save money
Not waste money

Pain Points:

Having too many gift cards to carry with them at all times
Forgetting to use their gift cards
Unwanted gift cards

Competitive Analysis

The competitors are all solving similar issues, but none focused on the problem of users forgetting to use their gift cards. This could not only solve a major pain point but would also be a way to separate from competitors.

Iteration

I quickly created sketches and low fidelity wireframes, created an InVision prototype and performed some user testing to get feedback.

Users ran through the task fairly well and without any friction. The only issue was users thought they could add more money to their gift cards. Though this could be great for a future feature, the MVP only allows user to manage their balance, but not add money to it.

Visual Design

After testing the wireframe prototype, I made a few adjustments and created the high fidelity mockups. The visuals were created to have a lighthearted feel, as well as stand out from competitors branding and colors. After styling the wireframes, I uploaded them to an InVison prototype and tested to see how the visuals changed the experience. Below are updates I made to the UI after getting feedback.

iPhone displaying the card details page.

Physical Card Required Alert:

Some companies require a physical gift card to be used, and to my surprise, everyone I tested said they were fine with that. What I did notice was that users were first alarmed with the notification itself and thought it was an error message for a brief moment. to help with this issue, I updated the icon from a exclamation point to a bell and also rearranged the wording on the message.

*Old message and icon

iPhone displaying a Starbucks card details screen.

Edit button

While testing it was brought to my attention that there wasn't a way to edit the gift card information after they added a card. I added a edit symbol next the card information, though now I feel like a simple "edit" text link would be more intuitive.

Loading Animations

It was suggested to add a screen loading animation to the prototype to create a realistic experience and to also let the user know a action is taking place.

Card Successfully Added

I added a notification when a gift card has been successfully added because users were a little confused it just jumped to a new screen.

Conclusion

It takes effort to not only evaluate which features construct a minimum viable product, but it also takes a lot of work to stick to it and not overbuild. There were moments when I had feature ideas, but made sure to keep the problem of gift card holders managing and forgetting to use their gift cards at most importance.

After building the app, the next step is testing to learn more about users' transaction process and solving the pain point of unwanted gift cards. It would also be worth researching a possible revenue models with businesses. The app alerts users when they are at a location where they have a gift card, and companies may have some interest in that feature to get people in their stores.