Background
An alternative to storing forgotten or unwanted gift cards in the house
A survey found nearly half of Americans have one unused gift card, totaling $21 billion nationwide. What would be an alternative to storing forgotten or unwanted gift cards in the house?
Digital gift giving can help people keep track of their gift cards more easily in one device, with the possibility to convert them to cash instantly.
Cash App offers a variety of options when sending money—as cash, digital gift card, crypto or stock. The many merchants already available on Cash App makes it a suitable money transfer app to explore creative ways for gift giving.
User Research
When it comes to gift cards, people love receiving more than giving them
To find out people's gift giving habits, needs and pain points, I conducted 3 user discovery interviews and a survey that collected responses from 30 participants.
An interesting finding from the research is that despite the huge amount of cash in unused gift cards in America alone, people generally avoid giving gift cards, because they are "impersonal". Yet, people love receiving them because they are "useful", the same is true for giving/receiving cash.
Other findings include preference over experience-based gifts, and that the surprise element was cited as the best part of receiving a gift.
Ideation
How might we encourage more users to send gift cards through the app?
During my initial research for this project in late November 2022, the only way for a user to know Cash App had digital gift cards was if they click on the transaction screen which you would get to only when you were about to pay someone. Giving gift cards as an option wasn't visible on any of the main pages.
Therefore, my initial challenge included how to make giving gift cards a more prominent feature on the app. However, a few weeks later in late December, sending digital gift card was promoted and brought to the top of one of the main pages.
Assuming that this was a result of Cash App trying to encourage more users to send gift cards, it would mean that I was on the right track in choosing to expand this feature and that this aligns with the business goal.
The goal
Gift people what they really want with a personal touch
The goal was to expand on the current digital gift card feature by allowing users to add a personalized e-card along with a gift card, send cash disguised as a custom gift card, retain the surprise element for the recipient by having them unwrap a gift, and help them remember what their friends like by saving their favorite brands to wishlists.
By increasing gift card transactions, Cash App will be able to convert more users into using Cash Card because that's how you use the gift cards received on the app. Cash Card users are more likely to be active users due to the discounts and the fact that most major features requiring users to have a virtual Cash Card number.
Design Process
Integrating a new e-card feature and introducing custom gift cards for sending cash.
The goal was to integrate new features seamlessly into the existing flows and design patterns.
These new features include:
1. Personalized E-card feature letting users add a personal touch with a photo or a short video.
2. A "Create Your Own" custom gift card option for users to send cash—for any purpose—as a gift card.
3. Gift "unwrapping" element
4. Keeping a list of your friends' favorite brands.
5. A new gift card category, "Experience", the most desirable kind of gifts according my research.
Sketches
High-fidelity Design
Usability Testing
Moderated usability tests with 5 participants
Results
All participants were able to complete the tasks of choosing the "any concert" gift card and send to someone (a name was given) and added a custom e-card. Unwrapping of gifts and personalization of the e-card were the most desirable feature.
Design change considerations
1. The new "Add E-card" feature placed below the original "For" caused confusion over what users should write under "For".
2. Users hesitated to choose the "Any concert" gift card if they saw Ticketmaster first. (The original flow tested used Concert gift card rather than Spa gift card as an example)
3. A "wishlist" placed in a friend's profile was misunderstood as being created by the friend rather than the user themselves, despite the help text "Only Visible To You".
Design Changes
Next Steps
Ways to promote sending (custom) gift cards
Promoting a feature users can benefit from is as important as creating it, so a great next step is to find ways to let Cash App users know about not only the fact that you can send cash as custom gift cards, but how useful they are. One way would be to include a short tagline in the gift card graphics highlighting the main benefits of sending custom gift cards. Alternatively, when a user click on custom gift card on the gift card menu, the following screen could show copy that explains its benefits and a few sample uses.
The fact that gift cards can be converted to cash can also use more promotion so as to encourage those who are hesitant because they are unsure about what gift cards to send.
Learnings
When using a common term, don't deviate from its usual usage
The confusion over the owner/creator of a wishlist taught me two things: 1. when using a common term, don't deviate from what people already associate it with in their minds, and 2. poor information architecture could further exacerbate that confusion, because the wishlist was under each user's profile, making it seem like the user of the profile created it.
