Scribe: Subscription Management App
Overview
Over the past few years, most of the content that we consume is moving to digital format and there are many forms through which we consume the online content.
In this digital era companies have adopted a subscription-based business model where the music we listen to every day, the movies we watch, cloud storage services, and many more and available to us in the form of subscription packages. An average working adult would be subscribed to at least 2 services monthly. The reality is that with the hectic work schedules it pretty overwhelming to keep track of your daily expenses, much less keep track of all the subscription plans.
I am pretty sure most of the time people tend to forget to pay or forget to cancel their subscriptions which leads to deduction from bank accounts without any notification. So this way we end up paying for services that we don’t need or want anymore.
Scenario
It’s hard to keep track of all the products and services that we subscribe to each month. All we see is money deducted from our accounts for services that we might not even need or want anymore. A company has a product that keeps track of all of your subscription fees on websites, apps, services, etc. over the years.
This company has only launched a desktop-only website that is not mobile-friendly and now needs to create a mobile version of its product that can be used by a broader audience. Right now the company only benefits from desktop users but they know that adding a mobile-friendly version of their product will significantly increase their market reach (with more than half of potential users on mobile devices). This will ultimately result in more users and more business.
Goals
- As a current user, I want to see all of my subscriptions in one place so that I can get a comprehensive view of my spending on subscriptions.
- 2. As a returning user, I want to unsubscribe from a subscription so that I can reduce needless spending.
- 3. As a consumer, I want to be notified if any of my subscriptions are about to be auto-renewed so that I can decide if I want to renew the subscription and continue spending money
Problem Statement
In a subscription-based model, customers are charged on a regular interval, based on a pre-agreed price.
However, this can be a problem from the customer’s perspective, as all we can see is money getting deducted from our accounts for services that we might now even need. So it can get difficult to manage several services and their expenses throughout the year.
My Role
As a solo UI/UX Designer, I collected user data, got key insights, mapped out an appropriate user flow, came up with a Minimum viable product (MVP), and designed high-fidelity designs for the red routes. These designs were then used to conduct Usability Testing with real-time users to get feedback about the product.
Design Process
01 DISCOVER
Secondary Research
The subscription market has been emerging in various industries including E-commerce, utility, OTT platforms, health and fitness, and many more. With an increase in such subscription services, it has become a need for consumers to find an efficient system to manage and organize their subscriptions.
Key Insights
According to a survey conducted with over 100 consumers-
- More than half of the respondents did not know how many subscriptions they were subscribed to, nor had any idea about how many of their subscriptions were still active.
- 70% of the respondents had been paying for unwanted subscriptions because they simply forgot to cancel the services before the renewal.
- Almost 19% of the respondents said it takes a lot of effort to cancel a service.
- Businesses are coming up with marketing strategies to draw in consumers with free trials. While signing up for new services may only take a click, but getting off the hook may not be. Due to this, the customers are discouraged by these complex cancellation processes.
Competitor Analysis
During my market research, I came across Trackmysubs and Trim as its competitor so I used this opportunity to assess the platform.
After assessing the platform I came up with a few key insights on what worked out and what did not.
Primary Research
User Survey
To seek the user’s opinions and problems about the subscription process, I conducted a survey that targets 15 people who are actively using the subscription services. The main goal of the research is to understand the goals, motivations, and pain points of the users within their services as well as resolving any problems by designing a better solution for them.
Through the responses received, I was able to analyze the current subscription experience of the users:
1. Consumers subscribe to two or three paid subscription services on average.
2. Users tend to check their repayment date through bank accounts or text messages.
3. The user’s decision upon keeping their subscription or canceling is mostly dependent on their spending.
4. Users miss the appropriate period to cancel their subscription because they tend to forget the date of their payment.
5. Consumers tend to find the cancellation process difficult and have a hard time finding the cancellation button.
02 DEFINE
User Interviews
User interview was conducted via call so that the user could express their feelings and difficulties about subscriptions they use.
For the user interview, the questions were conducted in a semi-structured manner, meaning I will write a guide with the main questions and topics I want to ask about, but I will not completely follow the guide and instead dig into topics that users will bring up during the interview so that it makes them feel more like a conversation than a formal interview.
Interview Objective
- Understand how users manage subscriptions.
- Understand how users manage their expenses on subscription services.
- Understand how users come across new subscription services they want to indulge in.
- Understand what mode of payment is widely used among the users to pay their subscription plans.
- Understand what are the pain points for the user to cancel a subscription that no longer is of any use.
Persona
I used these personas to help me empathize with the feelings of frustration some users feel when managing subscriptions. Considering the different needs that I identified in my personas led me to be more mindful about decision-making.
Affinity Map
The key questions, ideas, and notes that I had collected from my user interviews were grouped which described their process of subscription management. It tells us about their frustration, confusion, awareness, and comprehension.
How Might We
To find solutions to this problem, I needed to ask the right questions. So far, I gathered relevant information on the issues users experience with managing subscriptions and cultivated an empathetic understanding of user needs.
Thinking about the big picture, I formulated a few“How Might We” problem statements to get to the core of the problem.
03 IDEATE
User stories
To help stay aligned with user needs, I wrote User Stories that identified the essential features that help users achieve their tasks.
Minimum Viable Product
App Map
I worked on a solution to this challenge by creating a sitemap to understand the architecture of the app and ensure the navigation is structured intuitively for the users.
User Flow
A user flow is a specific route that a user might take through a site or app to achieve a goal. I created a user flow diagram to show “red routes” that users would take to complete a task.
04 DESIGN
Sketches
Now it was time to bring my project to life by sketching out my design with a focus on the red routes I had identified. I conducted five guerilla usability tests using a prototype version of my sketches to collect quick feedback on the functionality of my design.
Results from the initial guerilla tests confirmed:
- Confusion around naming conventions.
- Failure to explain special features in the prototype, such as the inbuilt wallet, screen time tracker.
- Failure to show the functionality of a few features within the prototype.
- Give clarity to the user on which screen he/she is on.
- Add a screen that will enable the users to add subscriptions manually.
- Provide users with offers to different combo services.
- Change the layout on the dashboard.
This feedback led to some major design changes to improve the user experience.
Style Guide
High Fidelity Designs
05 TEST
Usability Testing
To validate the design, I set out to test whether the prototype functions as expected by real users. More specifically I wanted to see how users responded to the proposed user flow as a way to manage subscription services.
I conducted remote, moderated usability tests via Zoom with five participants who find difficulty in managing subscriptions. The tasks included:
- Add subscriptions by scanning phone
- View details of LinkedIn subscription service
- View expenses for June
- View Screen Time for Netflix
- Add Money in Scribe Wallet
After completing the tasks, I then asked each participant if they would feel confident managing apps using this application.
Findings and Takeaways
Some errors reported included:
- Show all the active and inactive subscriptions.
- Mention all the features in your onboarding screens.
- Mention the number of hours for every category in the screen time tracker.
Overall, participants responded positively to the user flow while also providing insightful feedback as to how the application could be improved.
