CASH FUNDS
Bed Bath & Beyond’s new feature gives the registrant the opportunity to add funds to their registry and gift givers can easily contribute.
I was the Design lead for app, web desktop/ tablet and mobile experience.
My role
Design lead
Strategy
Competitive Audit
User Research
Design Handoff
Team
Product Manager
Junior Designer
Dev
Engineer
BA
QA
Device
App ios
Mobile/ Desktop Web
Duration
4 weeks
Background
During COVID-19, registries were not a priority. The cash funds feature was removed from the Bed Bath & Beyond site. Once the pandemic ended, Registrants wanted to get married again and register at registries that had cash funds.
Problem
Registry creates were down. At the time Bed Bath & Beyond did not have the cash funds feature. Removing Cash Funds made Bed Bath not competitive with other Registries.
Concept testing
Concept testing was performed by our researchers and of all potential features, registry creators are most likely to consider a registry that provides a gift card/ cash reward based on percentage of total amount of gift purchased than the other tested concepts across both registry groups. The demographics was mixed.
Looking to Upgrade
Living together or could have been married before. You have your own stuff that is a bit worn. Looking for upgrades. Things that you couldn’t afford. Looking for a lot of nice to haves. Looking for more money and experiences. Probably want to personalize their experience.
Example Personas
Have lived together and consolidated household
Older, with household items purchased independently
Not first marriage, has their own style/items
Merge between budget and extravagant shopper
Users
Just starting out
Couples who do not have anything. They have hand me down products. Consolidating and rethinking everything. Figuring out each other's long term style. Figuring out where they will live.
Example Personas
Doesn’t live together or have not lived together long
Registrant, living in a Small Spaces and just starting out
Younger couple, first marriage
Comparative analysis
I looked at a bunch of competitors such as Zola, My registry, Joy, and the Knot.
Zola, My Registry and Joy all allow the registrant to select a pre-made cash fund or a custom cash fund.
Once the cash fund was created, Zola gave the registrant the ability to use Venmo to store payment. My Registry uses PayPal. Joy uses Venmo, PayPal, or CashApp.
For Gift Giver you can contribute from Venmo or Credit Card For Zola, and PayPal and cash or check for Joy.
Overall, it was easy to set up a cash funds account with these different competitors.
Strategy and explorations
I worked closely with my product manager, to determine how we would approach the user experience of cash funds. We looked at the competitors and talked to our business stakeholders, developers, and engineers and PayPal to understand what was technically possible. We had countless discovery sessions and explored different approaches.
Overall, our business stakeholders decided to have Venmo as its only payment type for both registrant and the gift givers. Due to time constraints with the dev we could only launch the mvp feature where registrant can create a cash fund with Venmo but not customize the imagery or select pre-made cash funds or add a note. Those features will be for phase 2 post launch.
Usability testing
Conducted Unmoderated usability testing
Testing Parameters: Unmoderated test, 10 users, mobile designs
Test Structure
Started with questions around the prior registry and cash funds experience: Focused on understanding which features are important to the Registrant.
Had testers view cash funds prototype experience: give feedback
8/10 registrants said cash funds was the most important feature out of all the registry features
10/10 registrants were able to create a cash fund successfully. Users said designs were easy and simple to figure out
Users preferred to have minimal fields to create the fund, easy ability to create fund limits
Users had no issues with Venmo but thought it would be helpful to have additional places to store payment
Hi Fi Designs
After creating the wires, I reviewed the feedback and I created hi fi designs and prototypes for the flows below. I walked the team and stakeholders through the flows, then released to dev once approved.
Registrant creates a Cash fund flow
Registrant views funds in thank you list flow
Cash Funds Email
Gift Giver contribution flow
Registrant - create a cash fund
Registrant wants the quick ability to create a cash fund. From the registrant dashboard, registrants can quickly create a cash fund using their Venmo account. All they need to do is enter in their username and the cash fund is linked to their Venmo in one easy click.
Note: Constraints were we had to add on to the old dashboard and my items screens for launch. The sign up for cash funds was new. The old pages will be redesigned.
Registrant - thank you list
Once the registrant receives a contribution to their cash fund, they will receive an email as well as see the contribution in their thank-you list.
They will see the amount contributed and can easily log in to their Venmo account to access funds.
Note: Constraints were we had to use the thank you list template and add onto it. These screens are being redesigned for the relaunch.
Registrant email
Once a contribution has been made the registrant will receive an email as well as a push notification that a contribution has been made.
Gift Giver - contribute funds
A gift giver can easily contribute to a cash fund. From the registry my items, the gift giver clicks on contribute, and is then directed to Venmo to log in to make the transfer.
Outcome
The feature just launched so the PM’s are still monitoring.
So far there is a 2% lift in registry creates with cash funds
Next Steps
To look at features that was not in scope for the launch such as…
Add ability to let the registrant choose an image for their custom fund
Add ability for registrant to add a note
Look at alt approaches to add a place to store the payment outside Venmo for registrant and gift giver.