Getting the "Why" behind user behavior in Varo iOS and Android Registration Flows

What is Varo?

Varo is a fee-free, mobile-first, banking and personal finance app. It combines the robust technical offerings one would get from a major bank with the emphasis on customer care one would find at a credit union.

My Role

I was the researcher responsible for designing, conducting, analyzing and communicating findings for each of the projects that were synthesized here.

Challenge

Following user testing in 2018, the design and engineering team rebuilt the iOS registration flow in the spring of 2018. After six months of it being active, we wanted to revisit the flow to get the “why” behind the conversion drop offs we were seeing in our analytics platform, Amplitude. Co-currently we were preparing for the general release of the Android version of the app. We wanted to catch as many bugs and usability friction points as we could before release and also see how it performed against the iOS version with users. There were two key differences in the iOS and Android platforms. First, the Android app was a more streamlined version, as we were still building out its other functions in comparison to the iOS app which was fully built. Second, the registration flow in the Android app was a long form, in comparison to the iOS, where the flow consisted of multiple screens.

Process

We ran to two series of user testing with users that closely fit our target market, one with each platform. While I recruited participants, moderated sessions and synthesized and presented the findings, I had designers, product managers and engineers take notes, participate in debriefs and co-create the findings decks and co-develop action plans. Getting stakeholders involved from beginning to end was essential to forcing conversations about tough design decisions that involved trade-offs, aligning the team around next steps and socializing the findings and recommendations.

Learnings and Outcome

The results were surprising. Some of our concerns going into research were unfounded, but larger problems emerged that had not been on the company’s radar. In particular, we observed a disconnect between the expectations users formed when viewing our marketing content and what the product delivered. This lead to changes in product positioning in our marketing channels and conversations across the company of how to better anticipate the expectations users take to the product due to our hybrid nature.