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About Split Bill
A feature in LINE Messenger Indonesia, to make bill splitting process faster and easier by using OCR technology (image processing)
Summary of project
Enable a better way to settle bills inside Split Bill
Collaborators
2 Product Managers • 2 Product Designers • 4 Software Engineers
Responsibility
Conduct the research • Collaborate to design the interface and prototype • Maintain the quality of the design in the production
Type of project
New feature, design improvement
Timeline
Q2 2022
BACKGROUND
Opportunity to Grow
• In early 2022, we saw a comeback of LINE Split Bill users to the platform due to the loosen of social distancing which lead the increase of group-eating behavior
• The strategy team saw this as a momentum to grow Split Bill's users even bigger than before, but they believe the product need to be improved in order to cater more users inside Split Bill
01 UNDERSTAND & DEFINE
Beyond bill splitting
We conducted user journey mapping in order to see the position of Split Bill in the Bill Settlement process
PROBLEM
Understanding the user
Together with product manager, we started by analysing the Bill Settlement journey and throwing our assumptions about the problem that might occurs. We then use this information to design our interview question.
This are the findings:
Image: Basic process of bill settlement
But in most cases, we found some bill settlement problem in the current Split Bill product:
• Bill settlement process happen outside Split Bill due to its difficulty to access & manage bills that are already split in Split Bill
• The process to pay the bill and status updates usually occurs through the chat room + payment app, but due to chat room limitations, it is difficult to access this information again and the process is not seamless (opening and reopening more than one app)
• Some user are hesitant to remind their member due to negative impression in the society toward debt collection process toward the person
DEFINE
Defining the design challenge
EXPLORE
Competitor analysis
To understand where we stand, I decided to take look at how other competitors approach this problem. We found that the most relevant product that we should look for is, Split Wise, an app that solve end-to-end process on bill settlement process.
Image: Preview of the competitor analysis
from this competitive analysis, this are the findings:
• Basic information and function that should be provided to the user across pages
• Opportunities to improve bill settlement process in the Split Bill (unique value)
• Bill repayment in the settlement process happen outside the service due to the inability to provide in-app payment (license / legal problem)
SOLUTION
How the design solve the problem
Faster search bills
Currently, to be able to see the previous split bill, user need to remember which chatroom does the bill shared and search through it, which takes time and effort to do that.
Image: Process designing the new homepage
By putting all previous split bill in one place, searching for specific bill will be faster and more efficient.
Easier recognizing the bills
Other than searching chatroom, user need easy way to recognize the bills that they want to see. Backed by findings in the qualitative research, we try to highlight the most recognizable information first.
Image: Process designing the new card for Bill Information
Show only important bills
Not all bills are important, so we decide to divide active and inactive bills based on bill’s settlement status. By default user will see their active bills first, and when they changed context to search for bills that already inactive, they can open the “History” tab.
Image: Separate relevant and non-relevant bills by tab
Summarize bill detail
When user want to track their bills, current bill information unable to give user information about the bill status – active or not. So we decided to summarize all member's the payment status to give user more understanding about the status of the bill.
Image: Process designing the new bill details information
Image: Variants of Bill Status in Bill Details
Minimize the step to complete payment
Our early idea is, to enable user to transfer their money through LINE. But due to legal issue, we are unable to proceed that and change the design challenge. So we managed to redefine the 3rd design challenge into:
How might we simplify the payment and update the status process in Split Bill?
Image: Current and proposed flow
Image: Interface for the new payment process in Split Bill
Less personal reminder
Once user decided to remind their member, we design a way so they can delegate it to Split Bill, hence user won’t get any bad impression from the debt collection process
Image: Flow to send reminder to all members
Validate
Validate the solution
We decided to test the design to be sure about the solution. We conducted remote-usability test through zoom interview while asking and collecting user’s reaction during the test.
✅ New homepage: user able to recognize the active bill that they are looking for, quicker than the previous design
✅ New bill detail: user able to get their bill information quicker, user able to see and use the payment method information
✅ System reminder: user understand that reminder won’t be sent through personal account, and user understand how to remind their friend through Split Bill
We also collect room for improvements during this session, and put it in our backlog for further development.
result
How about the result?
Even though we managed to launch all the features, I’m unable to track the result due to my transfer process to another company. But let me borrow user’s voice in social media about how user react to the new Split Bill.
Shout out to:
The wonderful team of LINE Split Bill
