Payge: Designing a Safer Digital Wallet with Reversible Transactions
Project Detail
Team of 4:
Duc-Huy: Project Manager/ Senior Software Engineer.
Adedayo: Senior Software Engineer.
Ming Quang: Data Analyst.
Quynh Nguyen: UI/UX Designer.
Digital Product Redesign
VKBE Consulting UX Design Internship
Deliverables
Competitive Analysis Report
Stakeholder Interview Insights
Wireframes (Low & High Fidelity)
UI Redesign & Component Library
Interactive Prototype
Role
UI/UX Designer
Timeline
June 2022 - Feb 2023
Goals
Refine user experience, create clearler navigation.
Build components library.
Improve accessibility and readbility (typography, spacing, and color contrast).
Overview
Background
Payge is an internal project at VKBE Tech Consulting, originally proposed by one of our engineers to refine and expand on an early-stage product demo. The team had started developing some initial screens to showcase how the app might work, but the design needed a more structured approach to improve usability and visual consistency. The goal was to refine the user experience, establish clearer navigation, and build a component library to support future iterations of the product.
Challenges
Unclear user base for Payge.
Inefficient user flow in previous prototype.
How to prioritize features for an MVP launch?
How to refine an existing product while maintaining business goals?
My Role
Main UI/UX Designer.
Created wireframes, interactive prototypes, branding, and style guide.
At the end of my internship, I delivered a competitive analysis report, a Figma file that includes low and high-fidelity wireframes, an interactive prototype, a usability test report, and a component library.
Discover: Understanding Our Users
Problem Statement
Many digital wallet users fall victim to scams, facing delayed refunds and frustrating customer service experiences. Most existing solutions rely on generic warnings rather than actively preventing fraud, leaving users vulnerable.
Payge takes a different approach by introducing a trust-rating system, and a transaction reversal feature that helps users make safer transactions. Instead of just alerting users about potential risks, it provides an action to make and a clear, data-driven insight to build trust between buyers and sellers. The goal here is to create more secure and transparent digital payment experience, giving users greater confidence when sending money digitally.
Questions
How might we understand users’ frustrations with digital transactions?
How might we make our users feel more secure and confident when making transactions?
How might we identify the features that truly matter to our users and prioritize them?
How might we improve the application while aligning with Payge's business model?
Stakeholders Interview
When I joined the team, there were several uncertainties around Payge’s purpose, user base, and design approach. To gain clarity, I conducted stakeholder interviews with the team to understand the business requirements, product goals, and challenges.
Here are the insights from my stakeholders’ interview:
Unclear user base:
There was no clear definition of who our users are.
Lack of specific user personas, or data on who would benefit most from using our trust-rating system and transaction-reversible features.
Inefficient flow in the previous prototype:
The existing prototype had a confusing transaction flow.
Inconsistent UI components, lack of confirmation screens, and unclear button placement.
Feature prioritization for an MVP launch:
At first, we only had a feature which is transaction reversal feature. The challenge was to decide which features were essential for launch and which could be developed in future iterations.
Define: Identifying Users & Features
Secondary Research
After having some insights from the stakeholders interview, it’s time to do some research!
I focused on defining Payge’s core features and opportunities in the market. To do this, I conducted a competitive analysis to find our opportunities, mapped out a 2x2 matrix to see which features were essential, and create the current user flow to spot what needs to be changed.
Competitive Analysis
What I Found
Most competitors lack transaction reversal, fraud detection, and trust-rating system, which creates an opportunity for Payge to stand out. While some platforms offer basic transaction services, they don’t provide a built-in way to access trustworthy accounts which makes it harder for users to feel sure when sending money to new accounts.
Why It Matters
This gap highlights the opportunity for Payge to focus on building trust and security in digital transactions.
Small Business
Users Managing Customer Payments
Persona Development
I identified two key user types: regular users who rely on digital payments for personal transactions and small business owners who need a secure and reliable way to manage customer payments.
Regular Users
Everyday Transactions
Feature Prioritization
What I Found
As a team, we discussed which features should be prioritized for Payge’s MVP by mapping out on a 2x2 matrix based on value to users and effort to implement. This exercise helped us identify high-impact features while being mindful of our development constraints. We determined that:
Low-effort, high-value features such as send/receive funds, expenses tracking, and search filter should be implemented first since they provide immediate usability to our application.
High-effort, high-value features such as transaction reversal, AI trust rating system, and service search require more development time but they are considered essential and core features to differentiate Payge from its competitors.
High-effort, low-value feature: international availability were deprioritized for now as they require significant effort with less immediate user benefit. This feature would be suitable for Payge 2.0.
Why It Matters
This process helped us to get on the same page as a team, defining key features and priorities to create a clear, structured workflow for the project. It ensure that everyone was aligned on what to build first while setting a strong foundation for future application development.
Develop: Designing a Solution
User Flow
With our goals, users, and features defined, I was ready to start wireframing. I needed to determine how users would navigate the app, so I first mapped out the existing user flow based on the prototype demo to visualize how people would send and request money. This helped our team identify pain points.
User-flow of previous prototype demo
After team discussion on the current user flow, our team made several adjustments to improve the user flow:
Removed redundant steps and refining decision making points.
Clearer error handling.
More points of confirmation screens and messages.
Expanded profile management options and service providers search.
Maintain consistent terminology across platform.
Sketches
This section showcases early sketches that helped shape the interface design for Payge.
Sketches of Activity, Transaction Detail, Wallet.
Sketches of few variations of Homepage.
Sketches of Send and Request features.
Lo-fidelity Wireframes
Low-fidelity wireframes were used to test and validate our app’s core features, including sending, requesting, and reversing transactions.
Lo-fi Wireframes of the On-boarding Process.
Lo-fi Wireframes of the Send Transaction Flow.
Lo-fi Wireframes of the Request Transaction Flow.
Lo-fi Wireframes of the Reversal Transaction Flow.
Usability Testing Insights
01
02
03
Users expect a clear confirmation step before sending money.
100% users completed the sending money task. However, several participants hesitated before tapping “Send” which indicates uncertainty.
The request money flow causes occasional confusion due to button discoverability
75% task completion rate, 2 out of 8 participants struggled to locate the request button or tapped on unrelated elements.
The reversal transaction task revealed usability issues around discoverability and user confidence.
75% of participants completed the reversal transaction task. Others either abandoned it or tapped incorrectly, unsure where or how to reverse a transaction.
Deliverables
Short paragraph about the changes: red buttons for reverse, etc.
Style Guide
Short paragraph about style guide
Final Design
01
Send & Request Money
Users can send or request money by selecting a profile, entering an amount, and reviewing the transaction.
02
Reversal and Approval Transaction
If a user makes a mistake, they can reverse a transaction through our app. It shows the refund amount, any reversal fees, and explains that the action can’t be undone.
On the other hand, if everything looks good, users can tap Approve to finalize the transaction. This dual-option flow gives our users more control and gain more confidence with sending money.
03
Ratings & Transaction Feedback
After sending or receiving money, users can rate each other based on their experience. These ratings help to build trust, especially when sending payments to less familiar contacts.
04
Filter & Search
After sending or receiving money, users can rate each other based on their experience. These ratings help to build trust, especially when sending payments to less familiar contacts.
Reflection
Next Step
With the final designs completed, our developers are currently building the skeleton of Payge. The next step is to review the prototype together, collaborate on a working demo which is connected to a real database.
What I Learned
As my first UX Design intership, this project taught me how to work closely with a team, presenting my ideas confidently, and adapting designs based on real team and user feedback. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to organize the component library and make every consistent, which was honestly harder than I expected. There were a few visual mistakes I didn’t catch until later, but I think that’s a part of the learning process. Overall, I’m really grateful for this opportunity, and I’m excited to keep improving and contributing to future projects.