Here’s How Singapore’s PayLah! App Could Be Improved

With the incredibly useful DBS PayLah! app slowly but surely being integrated more & more into Singaporeans’ daily lives, it’s now an even easier experience as a consumer in Singapore. With just a glance or touch to pay for your meals, shopping or even taxi rides, how much easier can it get?

Heuristic Analysis of the App

Today I’m going to take a step back as a consumer and instead into the mind of a user interface and experience designer in order to complete a heuristic analysis review of the app.

This article will be split into five main sections, with the first four dedicated to the four main pages in the PayLah! app, and the last one to conclude off the review. Here we go.

Home Page

Right when you open the app, you will be presented with the Home Page. These are the four key buttons that consumers use the most on a daily basis or “The Big Four”. They are easily accessible and memorable to the user — open the app and there they are.

Despite its simplicity, there are two issues with these buttons that are incredibly easy to fix yet may be over-sighted.

The Big Four

Firstly, is the Split Bill button. The app has been trying to push the notion that a user is able to “split bills”, but there is no reason to rename the entire core function over it, which is requesting.

If you want to request money, for example from a friend, you aren’t splitting a bill, you just want to send a request. If you are splitting a bill, for example over dinner, you are also trying to send a request, just to multiple people.

Both scenarios require the same function — to request, but both scenarios do not require the same function of splitting the bill.

This makes me question why PayLah! decided to change the Request button to the Split Bill button. It was incredibly simple and intuitive to have the Request button from the get-go; I just don’t know why they decided to rebrand it to something more ‘complicated’.

Of course, once you have used the Split Bill button after a while it doesn’t matter, but if you are a relatively new user it does. Therefore, we will be reverting the button “Split Bill” back to “Request”.

Split Bill changed to Request

Manual Transactions versus QR Code Transactions

The second issue is with the buttons’ positions. The four buttons currently fall into two categories of transactions — Manual Transactions (Pay & Split Bill), and QR Code Transactions (Scan QR & My QR).

Each two buttons from the two groups should be placed right next to each other like so — Pay & Split Bill, My QR & Scan QR because whenever a transaction happens it is either a Manual Transaction or a QR Code Transaction.

For example, if a user has been consistently (or by habit) using the Manual Transaction ways, they would only use the two respective buttons (Pay & Split Bill).

Having them side by side is more convenient that having one button in between them. Same goes for the QR Code Transactions category, if a user prefers to use QR Codes when transacting, then they would either scan a QR or use their QR code; they work side by side.

Buttons are now positioned relative to their type of transaction

I understand what PayLah! is trying to accomplish by putting two Pay buttons (Pay & Scan QR) together and two Request (Split Bill & My QR) buttons together, regardless of Manual Transaction or QR Code Transaction.

However if they would REALLY want to make the current layout work, simply put an outline around each category with headers that say “Pay” and “Request”, such that whenever the user opens the app, the first thing they decide on is “Am I paying or requesting?”, then they can focus down into each box of two buttons, either manually transacting or using QR codes.

This makes the entire process more intuitive and streamlined for the user.

The ‘See More’ Button

The ‘See More’ button is currently extremely hidden from an average user’s eyes, as it does not represent a button whatsoever.

It almost looks like just a header for the content below it, especially with it being on top of a line. When opened, there are more buttons available to the user, of course.

To make this button pop-up and be more contrasting/obvious to users, a possible solution would be to use the same outline for the ‘Manage’ button as shown below.

This way, newer users would be able to see that you even are able to click this! There are many other ways that are probably better than mine, but this is just a simple example to show the difference between the current and a more obvious Show More button.

Deals You’ll Love

The home page should be used mostly for transactions, providing easy and quick access to the key buttons when needed.

There are others elements that are currently on the home page, one of which is the Deals section. It is a side scrolling section that currently presents four thumbnails of deals which users can click if they’re interested.

The thing is the ‘Discover’ page, which is one out of only four main pages, consists of the same four thumbnails and the same exact deals. The See All button also leads the user to the Discover page.

You will notice a common theme during this analysis that many of the same functions and pages are presented in slightly different forms in many different pages. These Deals are not an exception.

The problem about this is that it not only takes up space in the home page with the side-scrolling thumbnails and See All button, but it also takes up an entire other page for itself.

So, what can we do to solve this? I’ll talk about the solution in the Discover section of this article! (We’ll get there very soon, don’t worry.)

Recent Transactions

Going right down to the bottom of the home page, there is the last section “Recent Transactions”, which shows your last three transactions made.

You may think “Hey, it’s pretty convenient for me to see my last three transactions, why not?”. The problem here is that it is being unnecessarily put in the home page, being at the very bottom of the page and therefore rarely used.

This doesn’t mean people don’t want to see their recent transactions, but when they do they instinctively go to the History page with a single tap, NOT by scrolling down to the bottom of the home page.

Again, the app has good intention of introducing Recent Transactions but in return it makes the home page unnecessarily cluttered with content that can be found on other pages already.

Not only that, it provides no real functionality other than what you see, as you are unable to click the transactions to view more information.

The solution here is to just plainly remove the Recent Transactions section out of the Home page. It is unneeded.

Notifications Page or Junk Mail?

Another important feature to talk about in the home page is the notifications tab, which can be accessed by the bell.

Notifications includes Payment Received, Payment Accepted, Pending Transactions, and DBS PayLah’s own promotions. What’s the problem?

Well, this entire notification page is being cluttered with the all the different types of notifications, making this page feel almost like a junk mail folder. It is incredibly difficult to tell one notification from the other, with nothing important you would want to see that can really be found there easily.

There is a likely savior for this though — the filter button!

It can filter each category as mentioned, which means it solves the cluttering/junk problem right? Nope.

“Anything you can do, I can do better” pretty much sums it up. Any purpose the Notifications tab serves, other pages do it better.

If you want to find a recent transaction (Payment Received, and Payment Accepted), going to the History page with a one-tap access instead of finding it through the haystack that the Notifications page is, is much more intuitive.

Having a notifications page is completely fine, but when there is no real need for it and it is cluttered with too many types of notifications, it just becomes a junk mail folder that users won’t want to use.

The only exceptions that the History page doesn’t have are Pending Transactions and the PayLah! Promotions.

For the promotions, I do understand they are an agenda the app needs to be pushing, therefore I suggest for the promotions to be the only content remaining in the Notifications tab.

This makes it such that whenever the app pushes a notification about a promotion, the user (if they want to) will be able to refer to the promotion through the Notifications tab. This makes it a dedicated space for PayLah!’s own promotions, not a junk mail folder.

As for pending transactions, I’ll talk about it in the Discover Page section of this article.

History Page

Reusing The Filter Button

Remember the Filter function in the Notifications Tab? It is still incredibly useful when put to good use and that use is for the History page!

The History page is currently just a long list of previous transactions. Beyond scrolling down further and further you can’t filter out the exact transactions you want.

For example, if you want to view only Received Payments, Top-ups, Payments Sent, and the list goes on. Here, you can truly put the filter list to excellent use.

Discover Page

Ah yes, the page of entire marketing deals and promoted brands. Don’t get me wrong, the thumbnails and graphics are incredibly eye-catching — but does it deserve to take up an entire page?

Recycling The Discover Page

Going back to pending transactions first, the reason why it is currently only accessible in the notifications page is incredibly unintuitive and inaccessible.

If you want to view your pending requests that you are still waiting for, it should not be in the notifications tab, period.

Therefore, I suggest replacing the Discover page (which is currently filled with the Deals You’ll Love) with a page dedicated to Pending Transactions.

Users can now check and see the current pending transactions that they have with just a one-tap access.

Reducing The Home Page

Now, where will the Deals You’ll Love go to? They don’t fit in the History nor the new Pending Transactions page. I would suggest that they remain at the bottom of the Home page.

Not only are users still able to see these Deals frequently due to it being on the Home page, but it takes up much less unnecessary space compared to before.

It will remain also as the side scrolling thumbnails, but it won’t do any harm to expand the space it takes just a tiny bit more, since the previously Recent Transactions have already been removed.

And of course, the See All button previously there will no longer be needed since there isn’t a Discover page anymore.

More Page

Lastly, the More Page. The obligatory page that include settings and management for your profile, account, wallet, and so on.

The truth is, all these settings that are currently on the page are important and needs to be present. However, what can be improved for the user’s experience when accessing the More page?

A Chip Off the Old Block

Firstly, when an average or new user opens the More page, they can get intimidated by the sheer number of tabs there are and may take time to read and process through all the tabs.

There are two tabs here that look somewhat similar but are not. They are the Account Settings and Manage PayLah! tabs. A new user may question what the differences are: “Okay, so one of these is for my PayLah!’s account settings whereas the other is to manage my PayLah! account?”.

It can be confusing for the user at times therefore just to clear up any confusion, separating these two would be the best solution.

Since the Account Settings tab is to manage passwords, phone number, and so on, these are the “true” settings that an average would be familiar with.

Therefore, placing these under a familiar icon like this gear would be appropriate. In doing so, we are able to separate Account Settings from Manage PayLah!, as well as lessen the number of tabs in the More page.

Looks neater, right?

Moving on, we’re going to change the Manage PayLah! tab’s name to Manage PayLah! Wallet, to provide a more accurate title for the user. Adding the “Wallet” behind may be simple but it provides a lot more info than you think.

Since the content in the tab is mostly managing the wallet itself (with wallet limits, transferring of funds through the wallet, etc), it is important to differentiate between managing “PayLah!” and managing the actual “PayLah! Wallet”.

As for the “Manage Your Express Checkout” and “Manage Your Lifestyle Logins” tabs, I am unfortunately unable to give my input as I have almost no experience in using them nor am I able to.

Also, props to the designer for allocating a tiny bit of space between the tabs and Log Out button to prevent user error.

Conclusion

Here we’re be going through what we’ve changed/improved about each page exactly.

Home Page

1. Placing the Big Four buttons in accordance to Manual Transactions (Pay & Split Bill), and QR Code Transactions (Scan QR & My QR). Each two buttons from the two groups should be placed right next to each other.

2. Changed the Split Bill button back to the Request button.

3. Made the “See More” button pop-up and be more contrasting/obvious, by using the same outline for the ‘Manage’ button.

4. Removed Recent Transactions

5. The Notifications tab is now a dedicated space for DBS PayLah!’s own promotions, without user transactions mixed with them.

6. Removed the See All button for Deals You’ll Love.

History Page

1. Placing the Filter function previously from the Notifications tab to now the History page.

Discover Page

1. Replaced the Discover Page full of deals and promotions with the Pending Transactions page.

More Page

1. Replaced the Account Settings tab with a Settings icon.

2. Changed the tab’s title “Manage PayLah!” to “Manage PayLah! Wallet”.

The End

And that’s it for my DBS PayLah! user interface & experience heuristic review! I hope you thoroughly enjoyed this article as much as I did writing it. I’m open to constructive criticism or feedback as I am after all just trying to explore and learn more about micro-interactions and UI/UX designing.

Thanks for reading! :)