Venmo App Multi- Payment Redesign
As our final group project, my team and I improved upon the existing group payment function in Venmo, one of the most popular money transfer apps among college students.
Note: Venmo has since released a similar group payment feature as in this redesign. At the time of this project, this feature was unreleased and all ideas are our own.
Course
COGS 187A: Usability and Information Architecture
Year
October - December 2023
Team
David Shin, Bella Chen, Jacob Zhong
The Problem:
Venmo is a widely used mobile payment app among college students, but its interface presents several usability challenges. Many users struggle to request or pay multiple people at once, leading to accidental transactions and inefficiencies.
Our Goal: Redesign Venmo’s multi-payment feature to improve ease of use and minimize user error.
The Research:
We conducted usability tests with 8 Venmo users (ages 19-26) to evaluate common transaction tasks and identify pain points.
Usability Test Findings:
Requesting or paying multiple people was confusing – 6 out of 8 users didn’t know how to do this.
User search was ineffective – Participants struggled to locate a specific person using Venmo’s search feature.
Accidental transactions – 5 out of 8 users mistakenly sent payments instead of requests.
Lack of confirmation step – Users had no way to double-check transactions before finalizing them.
Competitive Analysis:
We compared Venmo’s multi-person payment system with 3 other apps that have a similar group-payment functionality: CashApp, Google Pay, and Apple Pay (via iMessage). Our findings are summarized in the table below, which we used to inform our redesign approach.
Competitive Insights:
💡 Enhance group payments visibility – Users should immediately see that they can request money from multiple people at once.
💡 Introduce “Saved Groups” – Allow users to create and save frequent payment groups, improving efficiency for roommates, club fees, and shared expenses.
💡 Add a transaction review step – Many competing apps already include this feature to reduce errors.
💡 Consider in-chat payment options – iMessage and Google Pay integrate payments into conversations. Venmo could explore a social-first approach to group payments, improving engagement.
The Prototyping:
After analyzing user testing results and competitive insights, we brainstormed potential flows until we settled on two iterations to address Venmo’s usability issues. Each redesign focused on improving multi-person payments, reducing transaction errors, and increasing usability clarity.
Redesign 1: Iterating on the Existing Flow
This redesign focused on minimally modifying Venmo’s current UI while improving usability. The goal was to make Venmo’s existing group payment feature more discoverable and intuitive without drastically changing the user flow.
User Testing Feedback on Redesign 1:
✅ Positives:
4/4 users found multi-person selection easier compared to the current Venmo UI.
The “Review” screen was well-received and prevented accidental transactions.
❌ Negatives:
Users still struggled to adjust different amounts for different people (only equal splits were intuitive).
The group payment process was still not as seamless as CashApp or Google Pay.
Redesign 2: Introducing a Group Payment System
This redesign introduced a new conceptual approach to multi-person payments through adding a new Venmo Groups feature, making it faster and more intuitive.
User Testing Feedback on Redesign 2:
✅ Positives:
3/4 users preferred this redesign over Redesign 1 because of the clear group selection feature.
Saved groups were highly valued, making frequent transactions easier.
Users found adjusting individual amounts intuitive with the split breakdown tool.
❌ Negatives:
Some users misunderstood how to split amounts, assuming they needed to enter each person's amount instead of the total bill.
The "Group Mode" concept was new, requiring a learning curve.
Final Design Recommendations:
After evaluating both redesigns, the best solution is a hybrid approach that combines the best features from Redesign 1 & 2.
Final UX Recommendations:
Keep the “Individual vs. Group” selection (from Redesign 2) to improve transaction clarity.
Maintain the “Review & Confirm” screen (from Redesign 1) to prevent payment mistakes.
Refine the split amount process to automatically divide payments based on user input.
Enable saved groups to enhance transaction efficiency for frequent payments.
The Takeaways:
I loved working on this project with my friends/teammates. This project proved to me that even popular, widely used products can be improved upon, and the design process is eternally iterative. It was even more rewarding seeing our findings validated, as Venmo rolled out a very similar Groups feature to the one we came up with just months after we finished this project.