Case Study 3: Solving the bill-splitting dilemma
No time? Quick skim:
An evaluative study for a passion project. I conducted a competitive analysis, 2 moderated usability tests, and ethnographic fieldwork to assess a bill-splitting app. A journey map revealed pain points for users, such as sharing their phone with friends at payment point. Ultimately, my insights revealed that critical usability issues are deterring target users from utilizing the app. Design modifications and iterative testing are recommended.
ABOUT: This one was a self-assignment, purely for fun :) After a group dinner went awry when it came to splitting the check, I felt there had to be an app out there to avoid this problem in future. Sure enough, there were plenty. But which would best meet our needs? And would we use it? TAB is a bill splitting app designed to ease the burden on groups when dining out, by splitting the bill for them and calculating what each diner owes.
PROBLEM: Dining out with a group becomes confusing when the bill comes if it’s not an even split (some drink cocktails, some only water, some order the expensive mains and some just an appetizer..). Most recently, 8 of us stood awkwardly at our table for 20 minutes while everyone did math trying to work out what they owed, and whoever pays the total on the group’s behalf inevitably gets stiffed on tax.
PROJECT OBJECTIVES: Determine which bill splitting app is best for dining out and if it meets user needs sufficiently to be actually utilized.
MY ROLE: Solo passion project researcher
TAB app (right) connects with Venmo
Discovery
Discovery involved secondary research, in the form of a deep dive google search of all the available bill splitting apps. I ruled out those designed for purposes other than dining, and read several existing articles comparing the “best” apps, which helped me narrow to the top few that did the task I wanted (assign names to items on a bill and split the total).
Method
Competitive Analysis
This was my starting point, to determine which app would be the best suited to our needs, comparing by features (takes photo of bill, calculates tax, connects to Venmo) and ease of use.
Usability Testing
After establishing that TAB was the app with all the features for best bill splitting, I wanted to see if it met user needs in a user-friendly way. I conducted moderated usability tests in person with 2 participants, recruited via friends and family and screened for the criteria of tech-savvy and frequently dined out.
Field Observations & Journey Map
Taking the app into context, I went out to dinner and observed friends using the app in the relevant context to split a group bill. I drafted a journey map to reflect a breakdown of the user experience.
Part of journey map showing diner experience using the TAB app
Data Analysis
Competitive Analysis:
After summarizing results in an Excel table, the clear winner was TAB due to one key feature that other apps did not have: the ability to take a photo of the receipt and have prices automatically scanned and entered, vs the user having to type them in. TAB also had all the other necessary features, such as Venmo connection and tax and tip calculation.
Usability Testing:
I typed up audio transcripts and transferred to Notably for analysis. Using affinity mapping, I identified two major themes - pain points (confusion) and positive feedback.
Side note: I like Notably because it allows transcription of Zoom calls, easy movement and grouping of notes in affinity maps, and filtering to pull out themes, all in one place. It also does an automatic sentiment sort. I don’t work for them, I promise.
Field Observation:
I transcribed a video recording and took notes on the user experience. Journey mapping revealed pain points and emotional trajectory of the users in relation to the phase of use.
Identifying themes (in progress) in usability test transcripts
“It does the math for me, that’s the best part”
- Potential User
“But it’s only connected to my Venmo, so then I’m not gonna pass my phone around, so how would they all pay?”
- Potential User
Findings
Several positive findings included the simple, clean design, the inclusion of Venmo within the app, and automatic calculation of tax and tip.
2 major pain points were identified:
1) users were confused about how to utilize the app if their friends don’t have it, and some were reluctant to pass their phone to others to select items (severity: critical - determined if user would use the app at all)
2) users didn’t like that they could only highlight in one color and couldn’t highlight different names in different colors to see all at once (severity: important - this impacted user experience and caused frustration)
Insights
Although the TAB app appears to be the most useful available for the purposes of this study, there are usability issues which deter target audience members from using it.
Participants fall into the target audience for this app, however, they were reluctant to use an app for bill splitting, even if they experienced frustration with bill splitting. As such, the experience needs to be as quick and simple as possible to encourage use, so usability issues should be addressed to facilitate this experience. Further research should also be conducted to examine why potential users are reluctant to use an app in this context.
Ideal follow up would include fixing usability issues then iterating testing to see if a more positive response was obtained, and testing on a wider scale, in context in restaurant settings.