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National Electronics Bills Payment User Experience Discussions Project
Focus groups
IDA plans to build a national e-payment hub, which will offer secure and trusted electronic bill payments and related services. It aims to provide a common online payment mode that is convenient, easy to use, trusted and secure, bank-neutral and widely available to consumers so long as they have a bank account.
The broad objective of the user experience discussions project was to gather consumers’ and businesses’ payment needs, expectations and motivations in order to design an intuitive and easy-to-use e-payment hub. The project decided on five user profiles. Five focus groups, which comprised of 34 participants in total, were conducted.
Based on the focus group findings, MicroUsability produced a research report, which consisted of user experience guidelines in the following areas:
- Self-efficacy
- Credibility
- Home page
- Information architecture
- Behavioural
- Feature
The broad objective of the user experience discussions project was to gather consumers’ and businesses’ payment needs, expectations and motivations in order to design an intuitive and easy-to-use e-payment hub.
The project also intended to validate the hub’s features proposed by IDA, and find out what would motivate users to switch from their current payments to the e-payment hub.
About three months
Phase 1: Met with stakeholders
The MicroUsability team met with the IDA stakeholders to have better understandings of the e-payment hub’s vision and target audience, determine the focus group objectives, and find out more about the hub’s potential competitors.
Phase 2: Competitive analysis and literature review
The MicroUsability team evaluated the e-payment hub’s potential competitors, reviewed related literature, and started to come up initial user profiles and user scenarios.
Phase 3: Prepared research plan
The research plan consisted of:
- User profile description
- Brief user scenarios
- Questionnaire for focus group participants
- Focus group discussion guide
- Focus group participant recruitment guide
- Project plan timeline
Phase 4: Recruited focus group participants
Based on the recruitment guide in the research plan, the focus group participants were recruited.
Phase 5: Conducted focus groups
Five focus groups were conducted with 34 participants in total.
Each focus group consisted of one facilitator and one researcher. The facilitator mediated the focus group by following the discussion guide in the research plan. Each focus group lasted for 1.5 to 2 hours and the IDA representatives were de-briefed afterwards.
Phase 6: Data analysis and reporting
The MicroUsability team analysed the focus group data, and documented the findings and recommendations in the research report. The findings and recommendations were also condensed in the form of presentation slides.
Research plan, research report and presentation slides
The following are some of the key findings in the research report:
- Personal users, who have a small number of bills to pay and whose time is not a constraint, do not seem to have the need to adopt the Internet payment methods. Examples of this group of personal users are students, who have a few bills to pay, and senior citizens, whose bills are handled by their children.
- Personal users, who are busy with their jobs and families, are more motivated to adopt better payment methods, e.g., Internet payment methods. They are also interested in more comprehensive payment management and customization functions (e.g., payment history, payment reminder) and optional security features.
- There are additional needs for corporate users who have both overseas and local billers. For instance, the ideal payment service needs to allow them to implement payment approval work flows, integrate with their in-house accounting systems, and make payments in batches.
The research report also provides design guidelines in the following areas:
- Self-efficacy: For example, leverage on the users’ existing payment knowledge with the Internet banking websites and kiosks.
- Credibility: For example, show the government backing and guarantee against fraud.
- Home page: For example, have an introductory “blurb”, show a clear conceptual model of the website, and show the eligibility information.
- Information architecture: For example, provide exact organizational schemes (e.g., alphabetical and geographical listings) and ambiguous organizational schemes (e.g., by topics and audience).
- Behavioural: For example, give appropriate feedback, and facilitate repeated transactions.
- Features: For example, broad range of bills, bill presentment and customization.
- Contextual inquiry: Observe how users go about paying bills using manual methods (e.g., posting cheques and paying at post offices), semi-automatic methods (e.g., paying at kiosks), and Internet methods. The field studies should also include talking to users about their perceptions, goals, expectations and concerns about the e-payment hub.
- Prototyping: Prototyping the key web pages
- Usability testing: Usability testing with the prototypes, and analyze the conceptual gaps. Revise the prototypes to correct the usability and interaction flaws, and test repeatedly until an acceptable performance level is achieved.
Not applicable
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