I led a restructure of PayPal's Checkout, an industry-leading product with +50% market share.
My focus was on redesigning the information architecture and navigation to improve user experience, transparency, and scalability of PayPal features while maintaining our impressive 80% conversion rate.
I facilitated sessions, brainstormed models, and created a blueprint to organize features. I guided designers, collaborated with a writer and researcher, and tested redesign variants.
The result? A progressive disclosure design that simplifies the interface, enabling customers to access their wallet and view card benefits.
User interviews helped my team and me understand how customers experience checkout.
We found that after making a purchase, consumers need assurance that the transaction was successful with the correct card. However, clutter on the checkout page can make this difficult and despite having multiple cards in their wallets and full access to our credit products, customers often stick to using just one out of fear of mistakes.
These problems inspired our design guiding principles
An early project decision was to enhance consolidated low-usage information and boost credit presence. A data analysis revealed that 50% of the checkout page was occupied by low-usage features like changing shipping details, updating profiles, and card benefits. Meanwhile, crucial features offering payment flexibility, such as Credit, were hidden and overlooked.
Through research, we identified two purchase mental models that customers gravitated towards:
"I want to use this card": Customers select a card based on the benefits associated with a specific purchase.
"I want to pay my way": Customers want to explore their payment options (such as splitting a card, using one for benefits, or using credit) and choose the best option.
I conducted a workshop with designers to gather their ideas on the ideal hierarchy to reorganize the +30 checkout features based on these mental models. Further discussions with product and engineering partners, as well as the PayPal credit team, led to the consolidation of these ideas into two blueprints.
Implementing the new IA required collaboration with over 50 team members from Finance, Payments, Credit, Profile, Rewards, Branding, and the PayPal Design System. Redesigning checkout faced resistance. I worked simultaneously on two approaches: a conservative "Use this card" design and an innovative "Pay my way" design, balancing over 50 functionalities for clarity and customer flexibility.
The design progressions below show how the design evolved as explorations changed.
Multiple rounds of testing analyzed how main feature changes impacted customer's ability to checkout. Below is just a sample of one of our latest testing rounds.
Customers found the design intuitive, enabling easy switching between payment methods. This design was highly valued for its reassuring effect, clear communication, and concise presentation without changing the status quo too much.
This design, although innovative and streamlined, posed a light, but undeniable learning curve for customers. There were internal debates about potential conversion risks, and at the same time excitement about the possibility of a new, scalable face for checkout.
As the design progressed, I met with different designers and teams who had influence over checkout, like legal, the PayPal Balance, Content and Credit teams. I coordinated feedback sessions with these groups as designs of edge cases evolved on both designs.
With contrasting designs and divided opinions, we decided to test both versions. Our goal was to match or exceed the old design's 80% conversion rate.
After inviting a small percentage of customers to test the checkout experience, we documented bug reports and suggestions in a spreadsheet and prioritized them.
Both designs improved the success rate and were close in performance. However, "Pay my way" required a significant migration of 3 API's that would last years. A decision was made to officially launch the "Use this card" design that would still require migrations, but in a less demanding timeline. We made continuous improvements and successfully launched the new checkout experience to the public.
One of the most valuable lessons I learned on this journey is the significance of designing a self-explanatory product and prioritizing people's pre-existing mental models to create experiences that truly connect with them.
Better conversion rate
The new design resulted in a decrease in checkout time from 2.5 minutes to 2.15 minutes , increases in conversion and elevated use of credit.
Reduced mental load
The use of multiple cards to pay also increased significantly, indicating that the design helped customers select the best payment method with confidence.
Customer satisfaction
The marketing team reported that customers appreciated that changes were made while keeping the experience familiar.
