Direct deposit
Direct depositing is an automated payment method through which funds are electronically transferred to a cardholder’s account. This feature is relevant between employee and employer on the US market
Problem and goal
The task came from the business side. The current version of the app does not provide a cardholder with an opportunity to deposit their own account and withdraw money.
We needed a feature that would allow a user to deposit and withdraw money, to enable a cardholder to find ATM and VRL points in over 200 countries, to provide additional information about an ATM point and to provide walking and driving directions.
We needed a feature that would allow a user to deposit and withdraw money, to enable a cardholder to find ATM and VRL points in over 200 countries, to provide additional information about an ATM point and to provide walking and driving directions.
Discover phase
I held a working stakeholders meeting which focused on discussing the problem and defining the tasks and the road map.
Discussing the problem
I spent a fair bit of time looking at the direct deposit flows in different apps on the US market (Revolut, Chime, N26, Current) and researched and collected the main patterns for direct deposit connection.
user requirements document
I spent a fair bit of time looking at the direct deposit flows in different apps on the US market (Revolut, Chime, N26, Current) and researched and collected the main patterns for direct deposit connection.
Competitive analysis
I spent a fair bit of time looking at the direct deposit flows in different apps on the US market (Revolut, Chime, N26, Current) and researched and collected the main patterns for direct deposit connection.
Competitive analys
It was clear that people are doing direct deposit connection using a manual and automatically way.
Automatically way — in this case, the connection occurs without the participation of the employer. This method is relevant for those employers who are included in the general USA database and have a large number of employees. To simplify the implementation of this method, integration with a third-party provider is necessary, which minimizes the load on front / back end development. Atomic was chosen as the provider. This service helps to transfer payment information (what part of the salary will be transferred to a bank account) and connect the user to the employer's database.
I researched API, functionality and web-hooks of external provider. The research helped me learn more important information about the implementation.
Automatically way — in this case, the connection occurs without the participation of the employer. This method is relevant for those employers who are included in the general USA database and have a large number of employees. To simplify the implementation of this method, integration with a third-party provider is necessary, which minimizes the load on front / back end development. Atomic was chosen as the provider. This service helps to transfer payment information (what part of the salary will be transferred to a bank account) and connect the user to the employer's database.
I researched API, functionality and web-hooks of external provider. The research helped me learn more important information about the implementation.
Atomic API
Atomic best practices
Manual way — this method is relevant for those employers who are not in the general database of employers and who have implemented bureaucratic processes for connecting Direct Deposit. In this flow, the direct deposit is set up by the employee himself, where he fills in the required fields and generates a form that he must submit to his employer. Based on this research, the main artifacts of this flow were the payroll percentage setup screen and the completed form.
Direct Deposit Forms
Design phase
User flow
I identified entry points and made a roadmap for this whole feature.
User Flow
Prototyping
The next step was to design a prototype of the main screen on which there is a fork between manual and automatic connection.
Set up Direct Deposit screen
Description. According to the existing concept, all starting blocks consist of graphics, a title and the function description. For the consistency of the product, it was decided to take the standard approach for this type of screen.
User details. I came up with a case hypothesis when a user transfers the main details to a third party and it already connects the transfer of wages for him. This method is relevant for those employers who do not have bureaucratic processes for connecting Direct Deposit.
CTA. A fork between automatic and manual connection methods. It was decided to make an automatic connection as the main CTA, since this way provides a seamless interaction between the user and the employer, and also reduces the load on the backend of our service.
Legal. Due to the fact that we have a third-party provider through which we transfer the user's personal data, it is necessary to let the user read all legal documents.
Next, I designed a secondary screen on which the percentage of salary deduction is selected when manually setting Direct Deposit.
User details. I came up with a case hypothesis when a user transfers the main details to a third party and it already connects the transfer of wages for him. This method is relevant for those employers who do not have bureaucratic processes for connecting Direct Deposit.
CTA. A fork between automatic and manual connection methods. It was decided to make an automatic connection as the main CTA, since this way provides a seamless interaction between the user and the employer, and also reduces the load on the backend of our service.
Legal. Due to the fact that we have a third-party provider through which we transfer the user's personal data, it is necessary to let the user read all legal documents.
Next, I designed a secondary screen on which the percentage of salary deduction is selected when manually setting Direct Deposit.
Get completed form screen
Set up. The user selects the percentage of salary deductions to his bank account. There is also a special input for those users who need to transfer a fixed amount.
Switcher. With it, the generated form can be sent to the user's email.
CTA. When the button is pressed, a form is generated, which the user later submits to his employer.
Switcher. With it, the generated form can be sent to the user's email.
CTA. When the button is pressed, a form is generated, which the user later submits to his employer.
Result
Through some iterations, we defined the visual design for the whole feature. This is what the first version of the features looked like when I finished.
Get completed form screen
I designed a direct deposit form that provides an employer with necessary data and wrote a specification and presented it to the developers. In the specification I described all flows and necessary information for implementation. In the result we created a method that allows setting up direct depositing through an external provider automatically or manually via the generated form.
Specification
What’s next?
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