Escalating the user experience of ShopeePay as an integrated e-wallet mobile application — UX Research case study
This case study is a personal project. Overall, I did the whole project alone. But, ideally, in conducting research, UX researchers will work with relevant stakeholders such as designers, products, engineers, and/or data. Here, I want to explore how to increase the user experience of ShopeePay and figure out some opportunities for improvement in the future.
Background
In 2020, Ipsos projected that in 2023 the number of e-wallet users is expected to amount to 75.9 million. Transactions through e-wallets increase drastically, let alone in 2019 by there were 4.7 million cashless transactions and 128 trillion volumes of cashless transactions in Indonesia. The prospect of the e-wallet industry in Indonesia is promising because it is supported by the growth of the population and the prediction of the PwC study that Indonesia will be the fourth-largest economy in the world by 2050.
All of this evidence is the ground of this case study, knowing the fact that ShopeePay, the service owned by e-commerce Shopee is one of the biggest players in the industry.
“According to Ipsos research in 2020, ShopeePay has the highest score in terms of consumer satisfaction. In 2021 Kadence conducted research about digital payment and financial services in Indonesia. ShopeePay became one of the most often used e-wallets”
This study started from my curiosity to know users’ perceptions of ShopeePay after I had some issues using ShopeePay because it mixes with other Shopee services. I think I might not be the only one who is facing the problem, there can be many people out there with the same or different issues. The purpose of this study is to understand the users’ problems and receive improvement from them as well as obtain a new perspective to address challenges. Putting aside all the perception and knowledge about ShopeePay’s popularity and positive reviews to see the issues more objectively so that I can find fresh user insight and experience to improve the ShopeePay experience.
The study begins by determining the objectives and hypothesis of the research. And then the next step is to determine the research method and make a research plan. Before I conducted quantitative and qualitative research based on the research plan, I did secondary research to know the big picture of the e-wallet industry and figure out the perception of users of ShopeePay. The following action after primary research is a synthesis of the research insight.
Project Role
UX Researcher
Timeline
November 2021
Process
Research Objective
- Discover users’ motivation and behavior, as well as understand how and why users are currently using an e-wallet
- Learn about any pain points users are encountering during the process of transactions and what improvements they have while using ShopeePay
- Uncover other e-wallet applications customers used
Hypothesis
ShopeePay is by far the most popular and widely used e-wallet in Indonesia, and the system is integrated with Shopee. From personal experience in using Shopee and ShopeePay, there were some uncomfortable experiences because the app was too messy and confusing. However, further study is needed to figure out the user experience when using the app and improve the user experience when using the app, including adding some new features based on user needs to maintain ShopeePay customers’ continuity.
Research Methodologies
To understand the ShopeePay user’s requirements and frustrations, in a proper manner I used two methods:
Secondary/Desk research
- Competitive analysis
- User Reviews
Quantitative
- Survey research
Qualitative
- In-depth interviews with both users and non-user
Secondary Research
The first thing to do in research is to conduct secondary research to understand the market e-wallet industry in Indonesia through competitive analysis and user stories, before moving to quantitative and qualitative research.
Competitive Analysis
Besides ShopeePay, some e-wallets were frequently mentioned in the survey, such as GoPay, OVO, Dana, and LinkAja. I will have to analyze the existing features and compare those companies to ShopeePay to help understand the industry and identify opportunities for ShopeePay.
The comparison of those e-wallets can be accessed through this link.
ShopeePay is the most downloaded app on the Play Store compared to other e-wallets (GoPay, OVO, Dana, and LinkAja), and reaches 100M+ downloads. It is reasonable because of the integration between Shopee and ShopeePay and will affect the uses of ShopeePay. According to Web Retailer, throughout 2021, Shopee is the most popular e-commerce application in the Southeast Asia region. In addition, in the same year, Shopee became the most downloaded app worldwide based on data from Apptopia. The popularity of Shopee is coherent with the rapid e-commerce industry in the region, population growth, and the young generation who is tech-savvy. No wonder the Shopee application is widely used.
The same goes with GoPay, which is also placed as the most downloaded application for 100M+ because its e-wallet is integrated with the Gojek app. As we all know, Gojek is a super app for online transportation in Indonesia and offers various services. Now, they expand their business in Southeast Asia countries. No wonder, if those two e-wallets are competitively placed first as the most downloaded app in the industry.
In general, all e-wallets offer various and almost similar services that provide convenience to users for their daily needs such as bill payments, money transfers, entertainment, anything related to telecommunication, and retail (fashion, gadgets, food, etc.). This is what brings up competition in the e-wallet industry, service quality-wise. From competitive analysis, I emphasized the services, design of the application, usability, placing banners (promotions, discounts, or vouchers), and the competitor’s strengths to be implemented in Shopee & ShopeePay. The competitive analysis is to inform and help the stakeholders to make decisions, just like what it does to designers when they design the application. It also can be further considered for product improvements as well as for the engineering team’s consideration for technological limitations and possibilities to implement the design.
From the secondary research, the suggestions and findings are:
- Three up to five header banners are enough on the home page of Shopee, the user is less likely to explore until the end of the page just to look at the banner, which means the engagement will decrease from the first until the last slide.
- If there is another banner in the submenu, it’s better to only have one or three max, especially in the ShopeePay section.
- Too many icons and categories. Make the design neater and less messy (to emphasize the important feature) → too much information
- Too many icons or features with the same function (vouchers/promos/discounts) → too confusing. Plus, still a lot of promotional banners both on the main page and sub-page.
- The same icon appears especially in the main menu and ShopeePay sub-menu, such as (SPaylater & SPinjam), making the app look messy. It is better to collect the same icons or features and put them in one category so that the main menu looks neat and simple. In addition, this will make it easier for users to use the application and find what they need.
- The product style of category and menu need to be standardized
- A new feature like budgeting control (ShopeePay) should be considered to be added to the app.
User Reviews
After I gathered competitive analysis, then, I performed secondary/desk research in which I looked up problems online by reading through Play Store, App Store, and Quora reviews to find and understand people’s frustrations while using ShopeePay.
To have a look at what the user said, open the following link.
Technical issues I figured out through the analysis:
- People can’t choose a shipping expedition
- The applications are frequently crashed and unresponsive
- UI/UX is messy and confusing
- Positive reviews about Shopee because it makes their life so much easier purchasing goods online.
- The problem using ShopeePay is mostly caused by the crashed and unresponsive app.
No one talks specifically about ShopeePay, they emphasize the problem of using Shopee in general and if they mention problems using ShopeePay, it is related to technical problems with the application such as lack of responsiveness and slow response. Further study and investigation are needed to understand user interactions with ShopeePay, regarding their behavior, attitude, journey, motive, and experience using ShopeePay.
Target Audience
For this study, I was looking for a mix of loyal customers of Shopee (people who use Shopee for any needs, especially ShopeePay) and other users (Dana/OVO/GoPay/LinkAja/ShopeePay). I did this to ensure I find an informative perspective on the app and see how users experience the app. This helped me to ensure that the research was not biased.
Respondents Criteria:
- Use the Shopee app and pay with ShopeePay at least once up to three times in the past month
- Use any other e-wallets at least 2–5 times a week or 4 times a month for any kind of transaction.
- Age: 18–40
- Geography: Indonesia only
- Language: Bahasa
The research plan can be accessed through the following link.
Quantitative Research
The quantitative survey was conducted to gather the amount of data to see the demography, spending habit, and usage of e-wallets in Indonesia before I moved to dig deeper through qualitative research. From the quantitative research, I get data as follows:
Key Insight:
Demography
- 42.3% of the majority of respondents’ occupations are employees and 36.5% are students.
- 38.5% of the total respondents who filled out the survey are based in Jabodetabek.
- 28% of the total respondents’ age range between 18–23 years old.
- 51.9% of respondents hold a bachelor’s degree.
Spending Habit, E-wallet Industry, & ShopeePay
- 61.5% of respondents, which is the majority of it, have awareness regarding their spending.
- 28.3% of respondents used OVO for transactions, while ShopeePay is in third place with 18.9%.
- 30.8% of the most frequent transactions with an e-wallet are for e-commerce payments and 25% for online transportation.
- 38.5% of respondents use ShopeePay to shop online at Shopee and
- 37.7% of respondents use ShopeePay for any kind of transaction 1–5 times a month.
Qualitative Research
After I managed to get seven suitable participants consisting of ShopeePay users and other e-wallet users, I immediately conducted a user interview to analyze and explore user behavior, thoughts, and perceptions of using e-wallets.
Affinity Map
After gathering the data, I organized and categorized the data based on issues that were often faced to understand the user’s regarding their behaviors, problems, and expectations when using e-wallets.
Prioritization Matrix
From the affinity map, I utilized a 2x2 matrix to help the designer to understand and prioritize which issues to tackle first. I used it in my research findings to map issues important to ShopeePay.
User Persona
Based on the research results, I created a user persona to understand the characteristics that represent the product user, understand their needs, and help focus on the problem to be solved.
Customer Journey
Customer journey is created based on user interactions when using ShopeePay for transactions.
Wireframe
After the whole process of research, I tried to reflect and make some wireframes to translate what users expected and what ideas were on their minds about ShopeePay.
In the wireframe, I created a Shopee menu page only showing the essential features and icons, for example, ShopeePay, ShopeeFood, and ShopeeMall. Furthermore, these icons and features can be explored and categorized based on their function.
Then, I changed the “Recommendation” in the bottom navigation to “Home”, added Shopee Mall, and removed “Video” because I think it is non-essential. In addition, I put “Favorite” in the bottom navigation as a wishlist so that people can quickly check the product that has been saved for the next purchase.
Second, “Pengaturan Anggaran” (budgeting feature), this feature aims to make users set their budgets and categorize them according to their needs. Moreover, I add “Riwayat” (history transaction for each expense and income), to provide complete details of the expenses and income of users. Furthermore, users can also check their spending on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. Last, when the users do transactions, they can categorize so that their expenses become more controlled.
What’s Next?
- Prototype: Refining wire flow to make a mockup. This can be used as a mechanism to get user feedback early and quickly so that it can be iterated on to make the product a better one.
- User Testing: Conducting testing to validate to the user whether the solution solved the problem or not
- Iterate: Repeating all processes to get closer to the predetermined goals
Reflections
I’ve been one of the e-wallet users, but when I first started this project, I didn’t know much about the service. But looking back, working on this case study, I have gained knowledge along the way and learned something new, like how to understand human behavior and empathize with other people and not only listening to their stories but requires human sense and emotions as well, the important thing implement all the knowledge in research.
Note: This case study was finished on 31 December 2021 in Bahasa. On 31 May 2022, some adjustments were made to this case study in several parts for publication and translation from Bahasa to English. Any updates of the Shopee app after this date are not accounted for in the research.
Thank you for reading! Share your thought, I’d love to hear your insights. If you have any questions or need to discuss, feel free to reach out through my Linkedin.
