App review: ipagoo

September 10, 2017September 17, 2017 marcabrahamLeave a comment

“Accounts designed for the 21st century” is the main strapline of ipagoo, a Fintech startup that offers multi-country and cross-currency accounts. I was intrigued by this concept and decided to download ipagoo’s new iOS app and write a quick review:

My quick summary of ipagoo (before using it) – I expect ipagoo to offer services similar to the World Account that World First, the company I work for, launched a few months ago. The World Account makes it easy for customers to open accounts in specific local currencies, making it easy to receive and pay out in difference currencies.

How does the app explain itself in the first minute? – When I open ipagoo’s iOS app, the first screen is a login one. I’m somewhat thrown by this as I don’t have an ipagoo account and the calls to action aren’t as clear as they could have been.

After finding and tapping on “new to ipagoo?” I land on a screen which explains the different services that ipagoo offers:

Accounts – Open and manage multiple accounts in different countries from your smartphone.
Payments – Keep payments under control and manage counter parties from the app.
Money Transfer – Move money between accounts instantly.
Currency Exchange – Switch funds between currencies in real time.

Despite looking a bit clunky, the app does a good job in letting its users know at the start of the onboarding process about the documents required for a successful registration. There’s a clear explanation as to how take a geotagged selfie, and that users need to make sure their phones are enabled for geolocation (complete with short videos for both Android and iOS users). The two-factor authentication process ipagoo applies feels relatively straightforward and seamless; I validate my email address on my desktop, after which a “complete my credentials” screen appears on my mobile app.

However, I’m slightly daunted by the 6-step registration process and the proofs of my ID that I need to upload. The look and feel of the form isn’t compelling, and fields like “previous name(s)” make me wonder why these are necessary in the first place. I do upload my passport, but give up on the registration process when asked for a recent proof of address, a picture of myself with my ID and detailed info about my financial status. I realise that I simply don’t know enough about ipagoo and the benefits of using its services, so I decide to explore things further before deciding whether or not sign up.

Perceived benefits of ipagoo – I understand that ipagoo uses traditional banking services to provide its users with a single portal to all their bank accounts, standing orders, debit cards, etc. The ease of accessing multiple accounts and data through a single app should make life a lot easier for customers. Currently, people like me – with accounts and debit cards in different countries – are currently constrained in account access, and having to have multiple logins.

Points of differentiation (existing and future) – Whilst I believe the frictionless aspect of ipagoo will soon become a ‘hygiene factor’ (given that the likes of Curve and Varo Money offer a similarly seamless experience) in future, I expect ipagoo become more of a ‘financial hub’ for customers, using APIs and the opportunities that PSD2 offer. I wouldn’t be surprised if ipagoo do more to address cross-border payments, as well as traditional standing orders, bank transfers, etc. I was therefore pleased to see that some of these aspects are represented on ipagoo’s roadmap. What I didn’t see on ipagoo’s roadmap was predictive analytics and recommendations, being able to understand customer profiles and recommend other financial products accordingly.

Main learning point: I really like ipagoo’s proposition and see plenty opportunities for ipagoo to make the (financial) life of their customers easier. However, I do believe there’s a need to improve the onboarding and user experience of the app, before integrating new services. As it stands, there’s scope to simplify the app experience, making ipagoo a truly ‘sticky’ proposition for its customers.

Related links for further learning:

App review: Receipt Bank

August 1, 2017September 3, 2017 marcabrahamLeave a comment

It isn’t often that one of the apps that I use on a regular basis attracts a large round of funding but it happened recently with Receipt Bank, a London based started which “makes your bookkeeping, faster, easier and more efficient.” Last month, Receipt Bank received a Series B investment worth $50 million from New York based Insight Venture Partners.

Receipt Bank, which started in 2010, targets accountants, bookkeepers and small businesses. It offers them an online platform through which users can submit their invoices, receipts, and bills by taking a picture and uploading it through Receipt Bank’s mobile app (see Fig. 1), desktop app (see Fig. 2), or an email submission. Receipt Bank’s system then automatically extracts relevant data, sorts and categorises it. Apart from viewing your processed expenses online, Receipt Bank also publishes everything to the user’s accounting software of choice, FreshBooks or Xero for example.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of Receipt Bank iOS app

Fig. 2 – The entry in Receipt Bank for one of my receipts

Given that I’ve been using Receipt Bank for a while now; instead of just reviewing existing functionality, I’ve also had a think about how I’d use a $50m war chest to further build out the Receipt Bank product:

Faster! Faster! Faster! – When I started using Receipt Bank last year, I emailed the customer support team enquiring about the wait between submitting a picture of a receipt and it being “ready for export”. I got a friendly reply explaining that “we ask for a maximum of 24 hours to process items, but we are usually much faster than that.” The customer support adviser also explained that “the turnaround time also depends on the number of items waiting to be processed by the software and also their quality.” I’m sure Receipt Bank uses some form of machine-learning, algorithms to automatically interpret and categorise the key data fields from the picture of a receipt. As the field of Artificial Intelligence continues to evolve, I expect Receipt Bank to be able to – eventually – process receipts and invoices within seconds, with no need for the user to add or edit any info processed. Because I envisage machine learning to be the core driver of Receipt Bank’s proposition, I suggest spending at least half of its latest investment on AI technology and engineers specialised in machine learning.
Not just tracking my bills and invoices – Yes, everybody is jumping on the chatbot wagon (and some of the results are frankly laughable). However, I do believe that if Receipt Bank can learn a sufficient amount about its customers and their spending and accounting behaviours, it will be able to provide them with tailored advice and predictions. For example, if I pay my supplier in China a fixed amount per month to keep my stock up, I’d like to ask Receipt Bank’s future “Expense Assistant” how my supplier payments will be affected if there’s massive volatility in the exchange rate between the British Pound and the Chinese Yuan. Similarly, when I look at most of today’s finance departments, the people in these teams seem to spend on matching the right payments received to the relevant invoice(s) sent out. I realise that the machine learning around multiple invoices wrapped into a single payment is easier said than done, but I don’t think it will be impossible and the $25m investment into AI (see point 1. above) should help massively.
What if the days of paper bills are numbered!? – Now that I’ve effectively spent $25m on AI technology, I’ve got $25m left. The first thing I’d do with this remaining money is to prepare for scenarios where invoices or receipts are no longer issued on paper but provided orally. At the moment, capability like Alexa Expense Tracker is mostly used for personal expenses, but I do envisage a future where people use Alexa or Siri to add and track their expenses. Given that voice technology is still very much in its infancy, I suggest restricting Receipt Bank’s investment into this area to a no more than $1m.
Integrate more (and please don’t forget about Asia) – If I were Receipt Bank I’d probably use about $10m of the remaining fund to enter new geographies and integrate with additional systems. For example, I like how Sage’s Pegg hooks into any expenses you record on your mobile, whether it’s via Slack, Facebook, Skype, WhatsApp, etc. I don’t know whether Receipt Bank is looking to enter the Asian market, but I feel there’s great opportunity to integrate with messenger apps like WeChat and Hike, without spending more than $2m on development and marketing. Also, integrating with payment processors, like Finsync did recently with Worldpay, is an integration avenue worth considering!
But don’t forget about the current product! – I feel Receipt bank would be remiss if it were to forget about improving its current platform, both in terms of functionality and user experience. For example, I can’t judge how well Receipt Bank does in retaining its customers, but I feel there are a number of ways in which it can make the existing product ‘work harder’ (see Fig. 3 below). In my experience, some of my proposed improvements and features shouldn’t break the bank. By spending about $1m on continuous improvements over a number of years, Receipt Bank should have at least $20m left in the bank, as a buffer for difficult times and any new opportunities that might arise during the product lifecycle.

Fig. 3 – Suggestions to make Receipt Bank’s existing product work harder:

Some touches of gamification – I’d argue that the longevity of the relationship between Receipt Bank and an individual user is determined by how often the users uploads bills onto the platform. I assume that most users will most probably not view managing their expenses as fun, I think it would be good to look at ways to make the experience more fun. For example, I could get a gold star from my accountant once I’ve successfully synced my month’s expenses into my accounting system. I feel that there’s plenty of room to reinforce the current gamification elements that Receipt Bank uses. For example, the message that Receipt Bank managed to save 27 minutes of my time doesn’t really do it for me (see Fig. 4 below). Instead, the focus could be on the productivity gain that I’ve made for billable work (if I’m a freelancer for example).
Better progress and status updates – Even if it does continue to take up to 24 hours. to categorise and process my expenses, it would be great if Receipt Bank could make its “in progress” status more intuitive and informative.
Clearer and stronger calls to action – For example, I can see that I’m not making the best use of my Receipt Bank subscription (see Fig. 5 below). However, there are no suggestions on specific actions I can take to get more value from my Receipt Bank plan.

Fig. 4 – Screenshot my Receipt Bank usage

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of my Receipt Bank “Usage summary”

Main learning point: Having thought about Receipt Bank’s current product offering, and my understanding of their target market, I suggest investing a good chunk of the recent investment into optimising the machine learning algorithms in such a way that both processing speed and accuracy are significantly increased. By doing this, the customer profile and behavioural data generated, will create additional opportunities to further retain customers and offer adjacent products and services.

Related links for further learning:

Book review: “Just Enough Research”

July 20, 2017July 20, 2017 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Back in 2013, Erika Hall, co-founder of Mule Design, wrote “Just Enough Research”. In this book, Hall explains why good customer research is so important. She outlines what makes research effective and provides practical tips on how to best conduct research. Reading “Just Enough Research” reminded me of reading “Rocket surgery made easy” by Steve Krug and “Undercover UX” by Cennydd Bowles, since all three books do a good job at both explaining and demystifying what it takes to do customer research.

These are the main things that I learned from reading “Just Enough Research”:

What is research? – Right off the bat, Hall makes the point that in order to innovate, it’s important for you to know about the current state of things and why they’re like that. Research is systematic inquiry; you want to know more about a particular topic, so you go through a process to increase your knowledge. The specific type of process depends on who you are and what you need to know. This is illustrated through a nice definition of design research by Jane Fulton Suri, partner at design consultancy IDEO (see Fig. 1).
Research is not asking people what they like! – I’m fully aware of how obvious this statement probably sounds. However, customer researcher is NOT about asking about what people do or don’t like. You might sometimes hear people ask users whether they like a particular product or feature; that isn’t what customer research is about. Instead, the focus is on exploring problem areas or new ideas, or simply testing how usable your product is.
Generative or exploratory research – This is the research you do to identify the problem to solve and explore ideas. As Hall explains “this is the research you do before you even know what you’re doing.” Once you’ve gathered information, you then analyse your learnings and identify the most commonly voiced (or observed) unmet customer needs. This will in turn result in a problem statement or hypothesis to concentrate on.
Descriptive and explanatory research – Descriptive research is about understanding the context of the problem that you’re looking to solve and how to best solve it. By this stage, you’ll have moved from “What’s a good problem to solve” to “What’s the best way to solve the problem I’ve identified?”
Evaluative research – Usability testing is the most common form of evaluative research. With this research you test that your solution is working as expected and is solving the problem you’ve identified.
Casual research – This type of research is about establishing a cause-and-effect relationship, understanding the ‘why’ behind an observation or pattern. Casual research often involves looking at analytics and carrying out A/B tests.
Heuristic analysis – In the early stages of product design and development, evaluative research can be done in the form of usability testing (see point 5. above) or heuristic analysis. You can test an existing site or application before redesigning. “Heuristic” means “based on experience”. A heuristic is not a hard measure; it’s more of a qualitative guideline of best usability practice. Jakob Nielsen, arguably the founding father of usability, came up with the idea of heuristic analysis in 1990 and introduced ten heuristic principles (see Fig. 2).
Usability testing – Testing the usability of a product with people is the second form of evaluative testing. Nielsen, the aforementioned usability guru, outlined five components that define usability (see Fig. 3). Hall stresses the importance of “cheap tests first, expensive tests later”; start simple – paper prototypes or sketches – and gradually up the ante.

Main learning point: “Just Enough Research” is a great, easy to read book which underlines the importance of customer research. The book does a great job in demonstrating that research doesn’t have to very expensive or onerous; it provides plenty of simple and practical to conduct ‘just enough research’.

Fig. 1 – Definition of “design research” by Jane Fulton Suri – Taken from: https://www.ideo.com/news/informing-our-intuition-design-research-for-radical-innovation

“Design research both inspires imagination and informs intuition through a variety of methods with related intents: to expose patterns underlying the rich reality of people’s behaviours and experiences, to explore reactions to probes and prototypes, and to shed light on the unknown through iterative hypothesis and experiment.”

Fig. 2 – Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Heuristics for User Interface Design (taken from: h ttp://www.nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics/)

Visibility of system status – The system should always keep users informed about what is going on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
Match between system and the real world – The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms. Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural and logical order.
User control and freedom – Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly marked “emergency exit” to leave the unwanted state without having to go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
Consistency and standards – Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations, or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
Error prevention – Even better than good error messages is a careful design which prevents a problem from occurring in the first place. Either eliminate error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a confirmation option before they commit to the action.
Recognition rather than recall – Minimise the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and options visible. The user should not have to remember information from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
Flexibility and efficiency of use – Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent actions.
Aesthetic and minimalist design – Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
Help users recognise, diagnose, and recover from errors – Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes), precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
Help and documentation – Even though it is better if the system can be used without documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and documentation. Any such information should be easy to search, focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and not be too large.

Fig. 3 – Jakob Nielsen’s 5 components of usability – Taken from: Erika Hall. Just Enough Research, pp. 105-106

Learnability – How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they come across the design?
Efficiency – Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
Memorability – When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
Errors – How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
Satisfaction – How pleasant is it to use the design?

My product management toolkit (23): customer empathy

July 7, 2017 marcabraham4 Comments

A few weeks ago I attended the annual Mind the Product conference in San Francisco, where David Wascha delivered a great talk about some of his key lessons learned in his 20 years of product management experience. He impressed on the audience that as product managers we should “protect our customer”; as product managers we need to shield our teams, but ultimately we need to protect our customers and their needs.

Dave’s point really resonated with me and prompted me to think more about how product managers can best protect customers and their needs. I believe this begins with the need to fully understand your customers; “customer empathy” is something that comes to mind here:

What’s customer empathy (1)? – In the dictionary, empathy is typically defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.” In contrast, sympathy is about feeling bad for someone else because of something that has happened to him or her. When I think about empathising with customers, I think about truly understanding their needs or problems. To me, the ultimate example of customer empathy can be found in Change By Design, a great book by IDEO‘s Tim Brown. In this book, Brown describes an IDEO employee who wanted to improve the experience of ER patients. The employee subsequently became an emergency room patient himself in order to experience first hand what it was like to be in an ER.
What’s customer empathy (2)? – I love how UX designer Irene Au describes design as “empathy made tangible”. Irene distinguishes between between analytical thinking and empathic thinking. Irene refers to a piece by Anthony Jack of Case Western University in this regard. Anthony found that when people think analytically, they tend to not use those areas of the brain that allow us to understand other people’s experience. It’s great to use data to inform the design and build of your product, and any decisions you make in the process. The risk with both quantitative data (e.g. analytics and surveys) and qualitative data (e.g. user interviews and observations) is that you end up still being quite removed from what the customer actually feels or thinks. We want to make sure that we really understand customer pain points and the impact of these pain points on the customers’ day-to-day lives.
What’s customer empathy (3)? – I recently came across a video by the Cleveland Clinic – a non-profit academic medical centre that specialises in clinical and hospital care – which embodies customer empathy in a very inspiring and effective way (see Fig. 1 below). The underlying premise of the video is all about looking through another person’s eyes, truly trying to understand what someone else is thinking or feeling.

Fig. 1 – Cleveland Clinic Empathy: The Human Connection to Patient Care – Wvj_q-o8&feature=youtu.be

I see customer empathy as a skill that can be learned. In previous pieces, I’ve looked at some of the tools and techniques you can use to develop customer empathy. This is a quick recap of three simple ways to get started:

Listen. Listen. Listen – I often find myself dying to say something, getting my two cents in. I’ve learned that this desire is the first thing that needs to go if you want to develop customer empathy. Earlier this year, I learned about the four components of active listening, from reading “The Art of Active Listening” . Empathy is one of the four components of active listening:

Empathy is about your ability to understand the speaker’s situation on an emotional level, based on your own view. Basing your understanding on your own view instead of on a sense of what should be felt, creates empathy instead of sympathy. Empathy can also be defined as your desire to feel the speaker’s emotions, regardless of your own experience.

Empathy Map – I’ve found empathy mapping to be a great way of capturing your insights into another person’s thoughts, feelings, perceptions, pain, gains and behaviours (see Fig. 2 below). In my experience, empathy maps tend to be most effective when they’ve been created collectively and validated with actual customers.

Fig. 2 – Example empathy map, by Harry Brignull – Taken from: “How To Run an Empathy Mapping & User Journey Workshop” https://medium.com/@harrybr/how-to-run-an-empathy-user-journey-mapping-workshop-813f3737067

Problem Statements – To me, product management is all about – to quote Ash Maurya – “falling in love with the problem, not your solution.” Problem statements are an easy but very effective way to both capture and communicate your understanding of customer problems to solve. Here’s a quick snippet from an earlier ‘toolkit post’, dedicated to writing effective problem statements:

Standard formula:

Stakeholder (describe person using empathetic language) NEEDS A WAY TO Need (needs are verbs) BECAUSE Insight (describe what you’ve learned about the stakeholder and his need)

Some simple examples:

Richard,who loves to eat biscuits wants to find a way to eat at 5 biscuits a day without gaining weight as he’s currently struggling to keep his weight under control.

Sandra from The Frying Pan Co. who likes using our data platform wants to be able to see the sales figures of her business for the previous three years, so that she can do accurate stock planning for the coming year.

As you can see from the simple sample problem statements above, the idea is that you put yourself in the shoes of your (target) users and ask yourself “so what …!?” What’s the impact that we’re looking to make on a user’s life? Why?

Main learning point: Don’t despair if you feel that you haven’t got a sense of customer empathy yet. There are numerous ways to start developing customer empathy, and listening to customers is probably the best place to start!

Related links for further learning:

App review: Vipps

May 5, 2017 marcabrahamLeave a comment

I’m always on the lookout for new payment apps and I recently came across Vipps. Vipps is a Norwegian peer to peer payments app, currently only available to Norwegian users.

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of Vipps – Taken from: https://www.vipps.no/

These are the main things I’ve learned about Vipps:

Use the recipient’s mobile number – Similar to the way the likes of Monzo and Uber work, with the Vipps app all you need is the mobile number of the recipient. If you need to send money to someone else, your friend needs to download the Vipps app and the amount will be sent to his/her account registered with Vipps. Select the person you want to pay from your phone’s contact list or enter their mobile number.
Use Vipps to split bills – For example, when you’re eating out with a group of friends, you can ask your friends for money when splitting the bill. Create a group name – e.g. Nando’s on Friday – and add the names of the group members. Now people in your group can enter all expenses that are to be shared between the group members. Once all the amounts have been entered and everyone has confirmed that there are no more outlays, it is easy to see who owes what.
Personal account registered with Vipps – Vipps doesn’t have it’s own current account. Instead, users can send money through Vipps from any Norwegian bank, provided that they have a bank debit card and a bank account with the bank in question.
Getting started with Vipps – To be able to use Vipps, users need to enter a Norwegian national identity number, a Norwegian mobile number, the details of their payment card (Visa or MasterCard), their Norwegian bank account number and an email address. Once you’ve created a four digit code, you can start paying or receiving money. When logging into Vipps, you can use your personal code or Touch ID.
Vipps’ charges – Vipps doesn’t charge for amounts below NOK 5 000. For payments of NOK 5 000 or above, the charge is 1 per cent of the total amount. There is no charge for receiving money.

Main learning point: Love how apps like Vipps are making it easier and easier for people to pay and receive money. The splitting bills functionality is very welcome!

Vipps 3

Fig. 2 – Vipps’ peer-to-peer payments – Taken from: http://anti.as/news/vipps-by-dnb

Vipps 4

Fig. 3 – Screenshot of Vipps’ Android app; making a payment – Taken from: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=no.dnb.vipps

Vipps 5

Fig. 4 – Screenshot of Vipps’ iOSapp; selecting a contact or a company that you want to pay – Taken from: https://www.appannie.com/en/apps/ios/app/vipps-by-dnb/

Related links for further learning:

App review: THEO

April 19, 2017April 19, 2017 marcabraham1 Comment

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of THEO – Taken from: http://fintechnews.sg/3137/roboadvisor/robo-advisory-services-asia/

I recently came across THEO, a mobile, Japanese investment service offered by Money Design. THEO acts as a ‘robo-advisor’; enabling users to invest using their smartphone, and applying machine-based learning to offer users investment suggestions. The service allows users to start investment from 100,000 JPY. By answering nine questions (see Fig. 2 below), Money Design’s proprietary robo-advisor’s algorithm selects an optimum combination from about 6,000 Exchange-Traded Funds (‘ETFs’) in about two minutes and provides discretionary investment management to the user.

Fig. 2 – Screenshot of questions asked to THEO users to create their investment profile

The user’s answers will trigger THEO’s underlying algorithms to deliver the most optimal money management plan for the user (see Fig. 3). At this point, we’ll need to consider the artificial intelligence aspect of THEO. This is where the accuracy of the proposed plan, as generated by THEO’s algorithms, comes into play (see Fig. 3 below). As one Japanese investor commented: “I am an aggressive investor with a long timescale so I was surprised to see how conservative the allocation ended up.”

Fig, 3 – Screenshot of sample diagnosis results based on answering THEO’s questions

Main learning point: The key point with apps like THEO is going to be the accuracy and personal fit of the investment plan its algorithms will suggest to investors. I wonder whether any manual ‘tweaking’ is involved in assessing investment profiles and subsequent recommendations.

Related links for further learning:

App review: Tide

April 6, 2017April 8, 2017 marcabraham1 Comment

How did Tide come to my attention? – I vaguely recall receiving an email from Tide a while ago about signing up for Tide, and a chance to learn about this new service before launch.

My quick summary of Tide (before using it)? – I expect a bank account exclusively geared towards to small to medium size businesses. A bit like Varo Money or Simple, but aimed at SMEs.

How does Tide explain itself in the first minute? – When I googled Tide, the top search result has “the Business Current Account that saves you time …” as its byline (see Fig. 1).

screen-shot-2017-03-06-at-08-02-34

Fig. 1 – Screenshot of top search result for Tide Banking

When I then go to Tide’s website, the homepage’s key messaging explains how Tide provide a small business current account (see Fig. 2). Speed and costs are the main things I take away from looking at Tide’s homepage at a first glance. I’m immediately intrigued to learn more about Tide’s “powerful tools that save you time and money.” This perception is reinforced by a “Sign up in 5 minutes” call to action button, just below the fold on Tide’s homepage.

screen-shot-2017-03-06-at-12-39-34

Fig. 2 – Screenshot of the homepage of https://www.tide.co/

Getting started, what’s the process like? – I click on the “Sign up in 5 minutes” button and a popup appears, telling me that Tide is available on Google and Android (see Fig. 3). I (wrongly) assumed that Tide’s services would also be available on my desktop, but I’m happy to go the App Store and download the Tide app.

screen-shot-2017-03-06-at-12-47-29

Fig. 3 – Screenshot of Tide’s popup message, directing me to Google Play and the App Store to start creating a Tide account

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of the opening screen of the Tide iOS app

I click on the “Get started” button and land on a delightful screen that shows me upfront what I need to open a Tide account. I like how the app informs me upfront of the documents and information I need to open a Tide account (see Fig. 6). As a user, there’s nothing more infuriating than starting the account creation process and learning halfway through that I don’t have the right documents.

Fig. 5 – Screenshot of the second screen of the Tide iOS app

I use the camera to take a picture of my driving license. Doing this makes me realise again how my passport is still registered to my old address, and I wonder if and how that’s going to impact my application for a Tide account.

Clearly, something isn’t right and I see a popup message which explains how Tide was unable to verify my details automatically. I now expect a phone call or an email from Tide about my identity verification. The good thing is that I can still continue with the account creation process, by simply clicking on the “Continue” button.

The bit where Tide links to Companies House feels very seamless and it automatically picks up my company.

This is the point where I hit a spanner in the works as the app doesn’t seem to accept the security photo that I’ve taken of myself. There’s a circular type button which enables me to take my picture again … and again … and again. Meanwhile, I’m unclear as to what I’m doing wrong and there’s no tooltip to explain what I need to ensure my picture meets Tide’s criteria. Clicking on the “next” button in the top right hand corner of the screen doesn’t help unfortunately, so I feel a bit stuck here.

After contacting Tide, the issue gets resolved and I continue the onboarding process. “Terms And Conditions” is the next step I’m presented with. The calls to action are clear and I like how I can easily read through Tide’s “Member Terms” and “Account Agreement” if I wish to.

After clicking both tick boxes, I receive a notification stating that my account has been opened, but that Tide needs to do some extra checks before creating a sort code and account number for me. I suspect this is due the fact that my driving license is still registered to my old address and doesn’t correspond with my company address.

The additional checks get carried out pretty swiftly and I can see a confirmation screen within the app, containing my account number, sort code and balance.

Did Tide deliver on my expectations? – Yes, apart from the issue with my security photo, onboarding with Tide felt intuitive for the most part. I believe that the app and the overall user experience would benefit from some simple tooltips (e.g. when submitting security details) to further simplify things.

As I learn …

This site is about everything digital, giving an update on new things as I learn

Tag: UX

App review: ipagoo

App review: Receipt Bank

Book review: “Just Enough Research”

My product management toolkit (23): customer empathy

App review: Vipps

App review: THEO

App review: Tide