Slice Price
A split-pay mobile app featuring a scanner that automatically transcribes a digital copy of a receipt and calculates split tip and tax.
Challenge
Find yourself fumbling with the calculator app as you try to split receipts between a group of friends?
As a college student with a friend group of 6, a night out for dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant can take on a hefty charge on one person's card. While we all try to calculate each person's order, with the tip and tax split evenly amongst the group — it can be hard to decipher a receipt.
Even after the numbers have been crunched, it can be awkward to remind your friend days later to pay up for their tasty (and expensive) margaritas.
Client
SUNY New Paltz Coursework
Mobile App Prototype
Current Behavior Flowchart
Proposed Design Solution
An app that allows members of a group to join a "party payment". While there will still be one card that will be charged (by the restaurant, grocery store, etc.), the participating members will be added to an in-app group and will be held responsible for selecting and paying their individual costs of the bill. The app will provide reminder notifications for those that have not paid within a select amount of time.
Less nagging, less hassle! More accountability, more fun!
Goals
Have payment-split groups that will allow members to select their costs.
Automatic distribution of tax and tip between group members.
Consistent reminder notifications for unpaid charges.
Link transactions to a budgeting system to increase awareness of spending habits.
User Research
Personas
I designed 3 different personas to understand who would use this app based on their frustrations, motivations, and goals.
User Flowchart
I designed a user flowchart to understand the user experience of the app and the displays, decisions, actions, and tasks, involved. This allowed me to organize what steps were necessary to complete a goal.
Affinity Diagram
I used an affinity diagram to list, understand, and organize what aspects of the app I want to include.
Card Sort
I then sorted these ideas in a card sort to further understanding the organization within pages of the app.
Design Process
Wireframing
How would the process work?
The person who has charged the group bill on their card will start a one-time payment split. They will title the split activity, how many members, percentage of tip (if applicable), the friends' profiles, and the category of activity. They will proceed by scanning the paper receipt with the phone-camera, which will then be transcribed into a digital copy. At this point, members added to the group will be notified of the bill and will be directed to select their individual costs. When each member selects their costs, the tax and tip is automatically calculated and split (proportionate to their purchase amount). Once a member has finished their payment process, their items will be removed from the main bill, and into their "claimed costs". This will remove any confusion between what items have or have not been paid for.
For an on-going trip payment split, members of the group will go through the same steps, however the amounts due will not be finalized until the trip is over. Your balance due to each member will be added or subtracted depending on the amount they owe you. The on-going trip payment split is likely to be used for groups that will be doing multiple split payments within a short period of time. By using this method, members can avoid the annoyance of numerous transactions out of their bank accounts.
Design System
Deliverables
See working prototype here.
Main Takeaways, Future Goals (and other things I learned)
Throughout the process of designing this app, I ran into some circumstances that may conflict with the flow of my original idea. What if someone wants to pay in cash? What if someone does not want to download the app and create an account? To solve this issue, I decided to add an "add a guest" option. This guest would still be a part of the group split, but they would pay outside of the app - through any desired way of payment.
I learned how to be flexible and create solutions when users may not want to follow the normal "flow chart".
If I had more time to continue working on this project, I would like to consider how a person can start a split payment without scanning a physical paper receipt. The situations where this would apply could look like group Uber ride charges, or house wifi and utilities charges.
