The following analysis was done for my own practice, and to show how I approach working through a large, complex UX challenge. Regardless of the instances where my approach might diverge from the current design, I highly recommend this app to everyone who shops at big brands and likes free money.
While I’ve tried to make this as digestible and scannable as possible, I’ve tried to include a wide array of key thoughts. All of the words written in this case study are my own thoughts and opinions, which I would expect to test with data as part of an official design process.
Bumped is an app that tracks your spending on your favorite brands, rewarding customer loyalty with a percentage of each purchase you make returned in the form of a fractional stock in that company.
What’s the catch? Sounds too good to be true, right? No catch for users, there are zero fees to have the account, sell stock or for anything. They make their money within their partnerships with banks and brands.
In theory, this should appeal to anyone with some sort of plastic card attached to an account that buys from even one of the 40 or so major brands they partner with. Given the reach of some of the retailers, this is a very broad market. This likely includes people who don’t understand or engage with the stock market. In my opinion, a good strategy would be to target users that don't, as those are the people that are most intimidated and unsure—thus harder to convert and more likely to need education around the product but have the most potential to become new long term investors.
In this evaluation I’m going to focus on key screens that form the core of this app’s experience. They are central to user engagement as they provide the most information relating to the purpose of users having the app. Disclaimer, this is a real look at my account. No, I don’t regret my occasional Taco Bell runs. 7-layer burritos are just good fast food.
Once a user has created an account and are collecting rewards they are greeted with this home screen upon entry.
While reviewing this design I try to answer these questions…
-What’s the purpose of the feature or information?
-Is the purpose clear?
-Is there any potential ambiguity or user error?
-Are there any questions a user could have?
-What is the benefit for users?
-What is the benefit for the business?
-Is the placement logical?
-Is there any sort of emotion the feature or information is trying to or could convey?
-Is there some other feature or information that could be more beneficial in its place?
Content breakdown:
The most prominent item on the home screen is, a sum of money with the label “Account Value.” So what does “Account Value” actually mean, and why has this app prioritized it to be the most important piece of information to provide users? To reiterate the core function of this app, users get fractional shares in a company stock based on a percentage of their purchases. In most cases, this equates to pennies per transaction and will take quite a bit of time to accumulate even one full share of a given company's stock. So it’s safe to initially assume this larger number is reflective of accumulated funds in the stock market.
Tapping on the number/label takes the user to an overlay that explains that the account value is the sum of all stocks in a user’s portfolio plus any cash in the account.
Apart from the inclusion of cash value, this is an excellent choice of data. It’s the sum of money that has been invested based on purchases accounting for the profit or loss it has endured in the stock market. Because this is so core to the concept of the app, I believe it’s safe to assume users would understand that this number is reflective of the accumulated portfolio value without additional explanation. As the largest number shown, it’s rewarding data for users to keep coming back to the app to check. It’s all money people would never have without this app existing, so the combined total is exciting!
In my mind the initial questions this information elicits for users are;
-What is the breakdown by individual stock?
-How are the stocks performing in the market?
-How much of this money was awarded for purchases vs. profit/loss in the stock market?
-Besides my purchases, could this number be improved in other ways?
-Is there any news I could use to decide whether to invest further or divest?
-How can this money be transferred to my bank account?
Most of these questions are either not answered in this context or not answered at all. I understand other users may have different questions and would suggest conducting surveys to hear those and use common themes to help prioritize and provide access to those answers.
As I mentioned, when you click on “Account value” it brings up a screen that illustrates it’s portfolio plus any cash value. Cash value is the amount of money in your Bumped account that is not included in your stock portfolio. It’s surprising to me “Account value” in this home screen context includes money not currently subject to stock market fluctuations. The only benefit I personally can conceive, is that it helps inflate the initial number users are exposed to and gives that money a home it doesn’t have currently have elsewhere in the app.
Looking deeper, at this time Bumped does not appear to be a full brokerage portal for users to buy and sell stocks in their partner brands. Users only have fractional shares allocated to their accounts based on purchases. There is no current feature for users to add money to an account to buy stocks. So if users have cash in an account it’s because that user decided to sell the fractional shares accumulated from an individual company.
So if users aren’t able to reinvest that money, why would cash be in an account at all? Why wouldn’t cash be automatically deposited to user bank accounts after the transaction settled? Even if there are outside limitations and the money can’t be automatically deposited, is this the most appropriate placeholder for cash? Shouldn’t there be more transparent ways to inform users they have cash waiting to be transferred to their accounts and encourage them to do so? To further my point, these transactions are not instant and take a few days. Would a user that is checking back on the transaction status expect to find this money still reflected in the number highlighted upon entry? Or could removing it help serve as an indication the transaction has settled and the money is ready for them elsewhere?
Another thing to always consider is how design choices benefit businesses. I would assume when users have cash sitting in an account Bumped is probably collecting interest from it. So maybe that revenue is seen as significant enough not to provide an auto deposit feature or have it be obvious to users that they have cash in their account. There is nothing inherently wrong with this in my opinion. Every design choice has pros and cons. But businesses have to consider if the choices they make to benefit themselves over their users might be indirectly hurting the business in other ways. For instance if a feature or flow is so inconvenient or confusing to users, in this case transferring cash to personal accounts, will users start using customer support resources? Or will users feel frustrated enough with the inconvenience to think poorly of Bumped? I think it benefits all parties to just make things easy and as mindless as possible.
Obviously there is a period of time required for financial transactions to take place, and cashing out is no different. There will be times that cash will be in an account for various reasons. I think a more appropriate solution would be to give it it’s own flow, separate from the stock portfolio, as well as having the initial number displayed upon app entry to focus on the excitement of the money in the market.
In context, this refers to the price change of the account value on the current day and over the past 30 days. Today’s data is prominently displayed and a user has swipe to display 30-day data. Each data block is tappable, triggering a dropdown that provides more detail on money gained from new purchase rewards and gained or lost in the stock market. These are useful and interesting pieces of information. I’m going to focus on the execution of the interactions and design.
Swiping to Display 30 day data
I see benefits to this interaction: It lets users focus on one data point, it’s something to engage with, and it creates space for the related information to expand into below. However, is it necessary to have users act when both data points could easily be displayed side by side? (The second photo on the right illustrates how they do fit side by side when you swipe and hold the interaction.) I understand there might be additional factors affecting this decision, such as the possibility that some data may be too long. However, you can change the position of the labels, maybe stacking the information or offering different solutions designed for rare instances or screen sizes.
Clicking to display more information
There are no signifers indicating to users that these boxes of information are interactive or that once the drop down is open,the new data displayed correlates with the price change selected (aside from the user’s knowledge it was tapped). There is also no indication on how to close this view. Typical indications like plus or minuses or arrows could be used, or perhaps highlighting the data box once it’s tapped.
Miscellaneous things I noticed about this information
-Font size appears to be smaller than usability standards.
-On Saturday/Sunday, “Today” section stays the same, but I’m assuming it reflects Friday’s trading. Which could be confusing and plainly isn’t accurate. I would suggest a weekend solution of switching to 7-day data to reflect the previous week of trading.
Overall, I believe the cognitive load for this feature is too high. I think it would be best to remove unnecessary interactions and use familiar UI patterns to indicate interactions. There’s an excellent UX book called, “Don’t Make Me Think” to which I’d add: Don’t make me work. In this context, I shouldn’t have to do any work or swipe to see the 30-day number, and I shouldn't have to guess and experiment to determine whether or not these items are interactive.
This section displays six of the most recent user transactions that triggered “rewards” resulting in a contribution of a company’s stock. It shows the reward amount, full transaction amount and it’s status toward becoming a stock. When a user taps on a transaction, they get more information about the individual transaction, what stock it’s contributing to, what account the transaction came from, and a few other minor details. From there a user can click into the entire transaction history list. I’d like to challenge the importance of this information and the value it is providing in this context.
Benefits
-Confirm latest purchases have been rewarded
-View amount contributed to stock
Yes, this information is important and it should exist somewhere in the app, but should it exist upon entry to the app? It’s also important to note that when notifications are turned on, users already receive mobile notifications about their transaction rewards.
Once a user trusts the app is tracking their transactions and creating rewards, there’s less of a need to verify those transactions. As stocks grow, small individual contributions become less and less important. Personally, I don't care for the reminder these transactions exist and would prefer to focus solely on money earned not spent. Plus, with only six of them displayed in this context, it doesn’t exactly provide a ton of value.
So the question is, is there a feature or data set that could provide more value in this context? Considering the content above this is about the total stock amounts, I would assume individual stock amounts would be the next piece of relevant information and interesting to learn.
Since the point of the app is the cumulative rewards towards each brand, it could be beneficial and interesting for the user to be given that information up front instead of having to dig for it. This could also be a good motivator for users to continue building the stock in each brand and helpful for users to remember which brands they chose to be loyal to. And if logos were added, front page brand recognition seems like it would be favorable for Bumped’s brand partners. Or perhaps there's other features to brainstorm that could benefit both brands and owners.
Every section of information on the home page could be improved in some way. The experience feels pretty drab in my opinion, nothing eye catching or super useful to interact with. These rewards should be exciting because, well, they are. This page doesn’t feel exciting or congratulatory or engaging enough to want to continuously interact with the app or encourage investing. I believe there is some big potential here.
So let’s move on to the exciting stuff: The full portfolio of stocks! To navigate to the portfolio section from the home page, you use the hamburger icon to reveal a left hand slide-out menu. I have some notes on prioritization and design in the navigation, but I’m not going to address those in this review. I do want to question whether the solo term, “Portfolio,” is clear enough for people new to the stock market vs. something like “Stocks,” “Stock Holdings,” “Stock Rewards,” or “Stock Portfolio.”
Content breakdown:
Once you’re in the portfolio section, the first thing you encounter is a tabbed section titled “Brands” that displays bubbles with the logos of brands users have chosen to be loyal to. Some are highlighted and some are not indicating the brands users do and don’t have shares in yet. In my case, Verizon is where I spend the most, so it’s significantly larger than the other bubbles.
Tap a brand’s bubble and a banner displays the current amount of stock holdings. Tap the holding amount and you get a cute screen that shows your stock in the form of a certificate. However there is no new information on this screen. On the certificate, the stock’s ticker symbol is similarly interactive. Tapping on it opens a very similar looking screen. The only new information presented is the current stock market share price in very small font below the certificate and the option to sell the stock. In my case, the data doesn’t even match from screen to screen, leaving me unclear regarding how much stock I actually have in Verizon. I don’t understand this redundancy or why this flow is the way it is. The only thing I can say is that this “Brand” tab is a more recent addition to the app, so my guess is this design is an attempt to provide more brand recognition.
First up on the Stocks tab is a tiny line of live stock market information. The stock shown in the center of the scroll has a minimal increase in font size. This text is very small and cramped underneath the main tabs, making it likely very hard to read or interact with for most users. I don’t see the need for different font sizes when the difference is so minimal, and I think it would be more efficient if items were just one readable size to scroll through.
Then there's a pie graph illustrating the sum of a portfolio based on the amount of individual stock holdings, with the account value displayed in the center of the circle. The Cash Balance is also displayed below the account value. Even in this context though, the account value includes cash. So not only is the pie chart a misrepresentation of the account value, it’s still unclear that it includes cash. Also, why is cash value not in the brand tab, too, if this is the placement they are going with?
When a piece of the pie is selected, the stock or group of stocks selected appear in a short scrollable section below the Cash Balance. I find it cumbersome that this section stays so short when displaying multiple stocks. When a stock is clicked you get to the same screen that was accessed from the Brand Tab. Overall, I think from this screen it would be a little difficult to find a specific stock holding.
I think the experience of each of these tabs is either cumbersome or has the potential to provide so much more useful information for users to engage and learn from. For instance, from an overall portfolio perspective: How much money has been invested because of my purchases? How much money have I made in the stock market? Or even an individual stock perspective: What normal data do investing apps show? Stock price history? Company news? What other data can be provided here? Maybe each stocks reward history? There’s so much potential here in my opinion.
I really think this concept is amazing and so beneficial for shoppers. I think there are a few main areas I would focus for users if I were to overhaul the design of this app.
Data - Providing creative and interesting uses of data related to stocks and purchases.
Education - Focus on better ways to educate users about the stock market.
Flow of content and information hierarchy - Prioritize things to better meet user needs
UI - Elegant UI’s can really change the perception of value an app provides
Tasks I would do to improve this experience
Analyze - All current user interaction data to gauge user interaction and interest or create new data segments to analyze while new designs are being created.
User Testing and Surveys - Retrieve current user feedback. Analyze how users currently use the app, what they are thinking about when they are doing so and seek opportunities to provide greater value.
Industry Research - Find related stock industry apps or with similar reward concepts to see their approaches to gain ideas to build upon for this app's context.
Brainstorm - New flows, features and solutions based on the previous steps. Prioritize items that provide the most value to users and the business while planning future iterations.
Iterate on Designs - Storyboard and Wireframe a new experience / work with UI designers to brainstorm and validate an elegant useable experience
Deploy/Test - Rapidly test deployments or prototypes, find areas to do A/B testing testing and continuously improve the experience based on data.
Overall, I’m a big fan of this concept and see so much potential for this app. I would be so curious to learn the vision Bumped has and where it wants to grow.
