Not so long ago, I remember going out with my daughter to one of those places where you play to win points, and then you exchange them for prizes. That day we were able to get enough points to get a beautiful dollhouse for my daughter, however, we lost the paper receipt and without it, there was no way to exchange the points. I was also told the cashier could not use my credit card to reprint my receipt even though I used my card to pay for the card. That night I only remember my daughter crying all the way home because of a paper receipt. Due to that experience, I realized one important thing: why we still have paper receipts in the 21st century? I wanted to work on this project because I had a bad experience with a paper receipt and I told my self, why not trying to figure this thing out and find a way to resolve the paper receipt problem. This Process Book will try to tackle this problem from a different perspective and for a specific target audience. Paper receipts have been around for over a centuries, the first paper receipt was issued back in 1884 (That is correct 136 years of paper receipts).
The problem is that after three centuries, human technology has not been able to design a better way to provide a receipt for our purchases. The Year is 2020 and we are still using a method that is considered obsolete, and harmful to the planet and our health. “3 million trees, and 9 billion gallons of water” are used to create this piece of paper, it also “generates more than 4 billion pounds of carbon dioxide and 302 million pounds of solid waste”
Unfortunately, paper receipts are a necessity for a specific audience that relies on paper receipts not because they want to but because they need to. During my research, I found out that business, in general, have to keep track of their expenditure by maintaining physical paper receipts on file. A mid-size business with 50 to 100 employees that deal with clients could easily generate over one to two thousand receipts a month (That is 18,000+ receipts a year).
By finding a better way to replace the paper receipt we will be able to help accountants and businesses maintain a more healthy relationship with one another. In one of my interviews, I was told that sometimes it can be stressful to manage paper receipts since one mistake could cost the company thousands.By handling paper receipts manually the user can become stressed, less efficient and sometimes have to perfom the task twice.
Creating a solution for a problem that is been around for over a centuries (136 years) is not a simple task, it will require many parties to be involved and to acknowledge that paper receipt must go. So how do we fix it? My proposal is by starting small and simple by creating a tool that would focus on a specific audience. The tool should be efficient, simple and effective to use. The main goal should be to create a way to digitized the information printed on a paper receipt and transfer it directly to the user account without the need to provide an email address or phone number.
Surveys were used to gather data about how people interacted with paper receipts, and what was their opinion towards them. The survey’s main goal was to find a common denominator between all the survey takers. I wanted to see if there was one, two or maybe more specific elements that the users would share in common regarding paper receipts.
The following data summarize the answers collected from the surveyors. A total of 63 people were able to take the survey and the most relevant questions where shown in this report. Out of all 63 responses, a total of 41 people or 65.1% of them found paper receipts very important to have. 33 people or 53.2% disposed of the receipts, 21 people or 33.9% actually storage the receipt for later use, and only 8 people or 12.9% recycle them.
For this section of my book, I searched for facts and official information regarding why it is important to digitize paper receipts and what was being done to accomplish this. So I started my research with the following questions:
For this part of my research, I asked questions and performed interviews with a couple of businesses in hopes to find specific information that would help my research. After a few interviews, I was able to collect some very interesting and insightful opinions from the businesses I talked to. A small business owner name Isabel told me that for the most part, they find it very difficult and stressful to handle paper receipts mainly because of the quantity they have to handle. Isabel said that it is time-consuming and chaotic when they have to find a specific paper receipt that was put on a storage a while back.
Finally, to complement my research I looked into three companies that are available in today’s market and offer some type of tool to digitize paper receipts. The competitive analysis would look for similarities, opportunities, and ways to improve or find an advantage. Although no application in the market offers true digital paper receipts without the need of an email, phone or registering to the retailers website I still find that is useful to compare to some type of similar product.
The technology is there and many companies are starting to look for ways to make the transition from paper receipts to digital receipts. My initial research showed that there was a need for a solution, my target audience needed a solution that would help them alleviate their problem. Surveys showed people were looking for an application that would help them sort receipts easily and without the need for a camera. My secondary research showed that companies such as MasterCard were already looking for a solution to the paper receipt. The technology was there and companies were working along with retailers to find a solution that would benefit everyone. It was just a matter of time and not if but when the solution would become available.
This UX project will consist of a total of 7 important deliverables of which six of them are a must-have for a UX project. The first six steps will require personas, card sorting, sitemaps, user journeys, user flows, and wireframes. In addition, one more steps will provide an idea of how the application could develop in futre iterations
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A collection of 4 individuals with different backgrounds, each persona has individual goals and obstacles. Their main goal is to become better professionals while maintaining a stress-free lifestyle. Persona's obstacles play an important role in preventing them to achieve their goals, with this set of personas we would be able to pave a path that would help us design a device for our digital receipt management tool.
Card sorting is a technique used to better evaluate information and to find common denominators when trying to find a solution for a problem. It is easy to perform and quick to execute. Multiple sessions can take place to gather data and eventually design a layout so a pattern can be recognized. Card sorting its been around for over a decade and it is one the first steps to take when working in UX. Once card sorting is complete it can provide a strong foundation for a project. More than anything card sorting provides a good understanding of the problem and can start opening doors for possible solutions. The card sorting that was performed on this project was intended to find a possible layout for our digital receipt application. Using the data from our initial research I was able to find a pattern, that allowed me to start working on the second part of my project which was the sitemaps.
A UX sitemap is a hierarchical design of a website or application, this step in UX design shows how pages are prioritized, connected, and named. Sitemaps are an important step in the discovery phase in UX design and usually are after Personas and user journeys. Sitemaps can be big or small, and usually for a small website application like ours that includes 10 or so pages a sitemap can be very minimal and simplistic. In conclusion, sitemaps can help us make a user-centered decision in navigation, labeling, and organization. For our web application, the sitemap will require six major sections of which 5 of them should require subsections.
The user journey will showcase the experiences our users go through before they learn of our application during the use of our application and after they get a chance to use the application. This specific user journey demonstrates the user goals, the channels they go through while encountering the application. It also provides anecdotes, obstacles, and the emotions they undergo while experiencing the application. All that while going through different phases such as awareness, joining the application, using it, and sharing it.
The user flow designed for this project showcases the possible path users would take when navigating or experiencing the web application. If the application was a feature tool for a banking application the following flow would explain how the user would go about using the tool. The starting point would have the user login to the bank's website and then the user would start by looking for a bank account and reviewing a specific month for the digital receipts. Or looking for the receipts directly through the navigational menu of the bank's website. The user would then search receipts trough the sorting tool or the user could also download reports for later use.
The wireframe below is a proposal of the featured application it allows users to review their digital receipts that are sent to the bank’s website. This is a preliminary view of a banking website showcasing the digital receipt section of the actual application. The section includes a quick view section of a single receipt and next to it is the main section where all the receipts would be located. This main section will have a search, sorting, print, and a download option for reports that could be compatible with excel and google sheets. These options would allow the user to view the receipts quickly and allow the user to sync reports directly to their favorite spreadsheet.
Looking into the future there is always a possibility for improvement, and for the Digital File System application, the next step would be to move into voice-enabled applications. Voice devices would be especially useful for people that are visually impaired. Having your echo device or Desktop able to read your receipts and allow you to navigate your browser would definitely create a better financial experience for people with disabilities.
Finally, a smartphone companion application could be developed to complement the experience. An application that would send alerts, messages, and confirmations when payments are posted or completed could be the perfect companion for this software.
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Thank you for reading, hope you enjoyed !
MC
Google Analytics, HotJar, User Flows, and User Testing Analysis
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Card Sorting, Competitive Analysis, Personas, User Flowcharts, and more
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Card Sorting, Sitemaps, Personas, User Flows, and Wireframes
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