Account provisioning | Microcopy by Amit

PayPal account types and benefits

See how we created a home to educate users about the different types of PayPal accounts, their benefits, and how to unlock them.

Business objective:

Create a permanent entry point for account provisioning in Profile that will let users proactively opt for accounts with more benefits (such as holding a balance).

Challenges

People would call the Help Center to request an account upgrade.
Anyone who wanted to hold a balance with PayPal had no way to proactively upgrade their account.
Customer care would transfer $0.25 to the user's account so that they would receive the communication about keeping their money in PayPal balance with a new account.
Legal caveats:
1. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's norms dictated that these accounts be treated as different to each other.
2. This meant that we couldn’t use words like “Upgrade your account”.
3. We had to be explicit about the different types of accounts in our communications.

User pain points:

"How do I upgrade my account to get crypto or other features?"
"How do I know about my account and type of benefits that I entail?"
"I submitted my document for review but I don't know what happened."
"How can I get a PayPal cash account?"

Role I played: Lead content designer

Duration: 1 month

Stakeholders: Product owner, Senior designer, UX researcher, and V.P Legal.

Our goals:

Create a permanent place for account provisioning in the app that
Explains the different types of accounts in PayPal
Educates the users about the benefits of each accounts and lets them upgrade or choose an account of their preference
Improve the adoption of PayPal Cash account that let users hold a balance with PayPal

Leading the way with content-first design

This was a content-first project and what follows will give you a glimpse of my process.

I started by rounding up the basics, understanding our different account structures, and creating an account comparison chart.

Competitor analysis and explorations

Decision time:

Which model to choose?

There were 3 models that we could leverage:

Product comparison and benefits model
Verified badge with account name that can be a segway for account upgrade
Using account name badges

We presented all the 3 approaches with their merits and demerits to the leadership to get thier opinion on which route to take. They agreed with us that the product comparison route was more suited to PayPal accounts and our offerings.

Zeroing on the label name

Finding the right label name was tricky considering the legal guidelines of not using “account upgrade” or “free”. I shortlisted the pool of label names to the following in reducing order of preference.

Accounts and benefits
Account comparison
Account features
Account types

User research

With the label names and wireflows ready, it was time to take it to the test and see what our users felt about the experience.

Since the entire world had latched its doors to COVID-19, we decided to do unmoderated user testing.

Here’s what we tested:

Getting content feedback in unmoderated testing:

I wanted to get feedback on the label and we ensured to ask the users to speak out loud what they would expect to see after they tap on ‘Accounts and benefits’.

We asked them to freelist the names of this section to see if they mimicked my label name.

In the end, we asked the users which of the label names from my shortlist would they prefer as the label name for this section. Two label names outperformed the rest:

Account comparison
Accounts and benefits

Running it past legal

I had to proactively involve Legal through all the hoops of the project. One bold claim or wrong representation of our accounts would have lead to a lot of bad publicity and reprimands.

What you will see next is the final product of many rounds of meetings with Legal teams and senior leadership.

Final result