Barry Levett
CEO
This month, I’m taking a closer look at how good software providers can become great ones by looking more closely at improving the user’s and developer’s experiences of the interfaces they are creating.
Technology delivers functionality
When software engineers begin designing a new product, they first focus on what that piece of software must deliver in terms of functionality. Once the product has been coded and is found to be capable of that functionality, it goes into User Acceptance Testing to make sure it performs that function reliably, at sufficient speed, across numerous platforms and devices (if relevant). Once all these tests have been run, and it has been piloted on a small coterie of ‘alpha’ customers, it goes live.
Many tech firms now regard strong UI (User Interface), UX (User Experience) and CX (Customer Experience) as key elements in software design. However, not many go further than this to ensure they are delivering great Developer Experience and Operations Experience.
Indeed, great Developer Experience is only tackled, it seems, by the most successful fintechs who then dominate their respective spaces, such as Stripe and Adyen who both make the Developer Experience a delightful one.
Delivering great UX for everyone
The more I explore the question of really differentiating your product, the more I realise this is about building experiences for everyone into the product design from Day One.
We produce paytech solutions for three key types of users:
1. Developers
2. Operations teams (both internal and those of our customers including banks, payment service providers and ISVs)
3. Users (typically merchants)
To deliver a superior User Experience for each of the above, it’s important to know precisely what superior, or just good, looks like for each type of user. Their demands are nearly always different. From our own research for a new product which we launched about six months ago – our new mobile acceptance solution called Wattle – we know some of what each of the above want and value in terms of UX.
1. For Developers
Developers want simple tools which are easy to apply. We must offer fully tested, glitch-free code which can be simply cut and pasted to create a new solution. They want us to abstract the complexity and hold that ‘under the hood’ on our side. What they don’t want is the need to understand all the nuances and assumptions that are inherent in an industry within which they have often never worked.
It’s got to be easy to use our tech to help build and roll out their tools rapidly and reliably, and ideally it should offer developers a seamless user experience regardless of whether they are building a solution for a POS terminal, or for an iOS or Android mobile device.
2. For Operations teams, including those of our customers
We have all seen big control rooms in the movies and on TV run by people in lab coats looking at flashing red and green lights showing the positions of trains in the network, or perhaps illustrating processes ongoing inside a reactor in a nuclear power station; or tracking of a rocket going into space. This is not just Hollywood but represents a valid need for operational visibility and control in real life by our customers, and by us.
We need to answer key questions like: Is the system working and if so, how well? Are backups and redundancies ready and in place in case something goes wrong? Have we established protocols with our customers to work together to troubleshoot and solve problems? Where should our customers focus their efforts to maximise their profits, geographically or otherwise? What proportion of transactions require a PIN? The questions are endless but can be summarised as follows: the need for real-time knowledge and ideally, visualisation of what is happening within every part of the system.
3. For Users (typically merchants)
Users also want a seamless experience for their customers. Regardless of the card or device which their customers are using to enable the transaction, the interface needs to look the same at each stage of the transaction. We must design the display message accordingly. It must be familiar to the customer regardless of the device and card they are using.
Merchants also want a real-time, information rich User Experience. It’s particularly valuable for merchants to know that transactions have gone through and which customers are buying the most that day, week or month.
That’s why we’ve put badges on our product development roadmap for Wattle. Badges can be used to celebrate a specific size of transaction, a specific milestone for the merchant, and much more. After all, our products should not just be about delivering a solution, but making the UX fun along the way.
Merchants also want an interface that delivers pertinent information when a transaction has failed. For example, it would be good to know that when a customer has been instructed to put his card into the POS terminal and tap in his PIN, it is because that customer or that terminal has hit its limit of back-to-back contactless transactions. Information is key to eliminate that ‘sorry sir, your card failed’ embarrassment.
With the rising use of self-checkouts in major retailers today, it is worth remembering that payment system users are increasingly the consumers themselves. For them, it is valuable, as far as possible, to check out as rapidly as possible, ideally without the need to call an attendant over. Keeping those self-checkout queues running smoothly is key.
Another example is receipting. How many times are we handed a POS terminal receipt and asked whether we want a separate itemised one? We are working on our own flexible receipting system as an extension to Wattle – more on that front in due course.
So UX is all important. But remember, an increasingly accurate understanding of what all users need, including those not normally top of mind like developers, is the key to going to the next level for paytech solution developers.
