Problem
The transaction activity feed had an outdated, functional look and feel. Lack of information design and technical, inside-out language meant that customers couldn't find or couldn't parse the information and were forced to call when something went wrong.
Approach
For the transaction types, my starting place was to audit existing transaction types and map backend statuses to customer facing language with the goal of reducing customer-facing transaction types to as few as possible. Once I'd pared down the list, the next step was to use natural, friendly language to improve customer comprehension. Then, I created and documented strategy, patterns, and guidelines for scalability as new transaction types arose. For the transaction details, I used heuristics, best practices, customer input to understand relevant info and tasks and drive information hierarchy and design. Part of the overall strategy was to surface highest frequency and most critical actions inline so customers don’t need to expand details to take action. In terms of tone, the goal was to be simple and helpful so customers can find what they need at a glance.
My role
I partnered with engineering to audit and document back-end and customer-facing language and statuses for all transaction types. I closely collaborated with design partner on information design and I defined and executed on all strategy, content patterns, guidelines, and UX copy.
If it looks simple, even unimpressive, then we've met our goal. It was a tough challenge to parse, prioritize, and structure the info that we show customers about their transactions. Informed by data and research about top tasks, our approach was to group information related to you as the buyer like payment method and date (on the left) and to group information related the seller and purchase (on the right). In the bottom section, we've separated out the information you need if there's a problem. It's below the transaction info, because it's less frequently used, but it's laid out to be easily discoverable should a problem arise.
Showing my process to document and map back-end transaction types and statuses to customer-facing copy. This audit helped to get sign-off from stakeholders, fill in gaps, and see the transactions from both the buyer and seller's POV.