Whatsub — App Design
Exisiting Subscription Apps / Market Research
As a newbie to subscription apps, I wanted to know what subscription tracking apps are currently on the market and their key features. I conducted my own user testing on myself because I didn't fully grasp existing products at the time. Of course there is some bias there, but this allowed me to see what their strengths and weaknesses were.
Billbot
Tracking user’s recurrent expenses.
Tracking user’s recurrent expenses.
- Yearly option for the billing cycle
- Manage and track subscriptions and regular expenses
- Search templates / apps to add and track
- Customize each subscribed app screen
- Support multiple currencies and languages
- Lack of ability to take the subscription list from one device to another
- Weak reminder service
- Lack of sorting capabilities
Subscription Tracker
Subscription payment due tracking.
Subscription payment due tracking.
- Set up favorite subscriptions
- Choose from popular services
- Add widgets on the screen
- No need for logging in or providing sensitive user information
Rocket Money
Support subscription cancellation and help users to lower
their existing bills.
Support subscription cancellation and help users to lower
their existing bills.
- One tap to cancel unused subscriptions
- Negotiates cell phone and cable bills
- Helps you get refunds for some bank fees
- Track and show data of your credit score and net worth
- Access to bank accounts and identify top spending categories
- Costs between $3 and $12 per month to upgrade to Premium Service
- Does not negotiate internet, landline phones, and radio/TV or electric bills
User Interview & Affinity Map
To understand the app's target user, I tried to find people who could pay for their own subscriptions. The notes below show their experiences using alternative methods to track paid subscriptions, their needs, satisfactions and disappointments, and the common problems when using other subscription tracking apps.
Persona
Based on user interviews and competitive analysis, I created a persona to have a better understanding of my target users, and get the ideas for app design. To make sure designs are user-centered, I utilized these as a guide for making wireframes and digital prototype.
User Flow
Similar to user testing with paper prototypes, user flows helped me further design the layout to check usability and usable features before creating a digital prototype.
Initial Sketch
After doing the above research and interviews for this app, I jumped into the design process. I started sketching out the features of the app that I think are the most important to users. The sketch below shows a list of paid subscriptions’ monthly amounts, brief descriptions and expiration dates, details of each app, family plan management features, and payment history.
Paper Prototype
Before getting into digital prototyping, I decided to conduct user testing using paper prototypes to understand different types of users and their needs.
Changes
Things need to be added
- Able to add and remove members from plan
- Able to see whether and when monthly payments have increased / decreased
- Able to customize each subscribed app screen
- Able to view payment history with different card
Wireframe
Wireframes helped me find where to place buttons, icons, and texts, and navigate the screens that came next. I used figma’s native tools to create mockups and played around with different components and shapes that I could use as base models for my app’s screens.
Digital Prototype
Lastly, I created a digital prototype based on initial sketches, low-fi prototypes, and mockups. When creating the barebones prototype, I was able to fix and rearrange the unnatural flow from screen to screen. During the digital prototyping process, I was able to find and add previously undiscovered details and accommodate more usable features.
Next Steps !
- It was challenging for me to think of ideas on my own and consider alternative viewpoints while building this product. I only had family and friends who don't have knowledge in ux design, to bounce my ideas off of. Now that the design of the app has progressed to some extent, we want to do another user test to cover the gaps
- More user testing data using digital prototype
- Explore a graphical implementation where users can view the entire payment using a graph
- Conceptual understanding of how to send and receive gift coupons in different currencies
- To gain investors, it needs to be profitable thus adding the ad option to provide financial stability, while also giving users premium features
