American Express Transaction Management
As Lead UX Designer, I worked closely with the internal American Express UX group on improving the usability and feature set of a complex data management tool. Work included audits, conceptual and detailed design, HTML prototyping, user testing, and UX specs creation.
Case Study: Sync with Quickbooks
Background
The Open team at American Express focuses on credit cards for small to medium-sized businesses. These businesses commonly use Intuit QuickBooks for accounting, requiring all business related transactions to be captured into QuickBooks. Instead of having to manually enter these, American Express allows for transfer of transactions from the American Express website to QuickBooks.
Project Goal
The project goal was to add specific new features to the existing system: Batch Edit, Split Transactions, Advanced Transaction States. Additionally, general usability enhancements were to be identified and carried out.
Problem Analysis & Ideation
I worked closely with the Amex Design Team on the initial problem analysis. One key challenge was how to communicate a transaction status to the user: Due to technology requirements and synchronization issues, a transaction could be in a multitude of different states (e.g. not ready to send, automatically categorized, previously not sent, pending to be synced from cloud to desktop, ...). We collaborated closely on how to simplify these states and isolate the user from the technical details.
Concept Development
A multitude of concepts were then developed and iterated over via sketches and wireframes.
User Testing - Round 1
As part of the design development, two rounds of user testing were carried out. I created screeners for initial user recruiting, as well as high-level test scripts and all used material. While the actual user testing was carried out by a third party, I was present to observe the users first-hand and to provide ongoing feedback to the moderator as needed.
The first round used printed, low-fidelity wireframes. We gained valuable insights into general concept understanding, as well as on nomenclature and affordances.
User Testing - Round 2
After making adjustments based on the received feedback, we carried out a second round of testing. For this round, I implemented an interactive HTML prototype. This allowed the users to actively explore the interface. We received additional valuable feedback on some of the more detailed design decisions.
UX Specs
The final deliverable was a UX specification. The Graphic Designer on the American Express team created the associated Graphic Design specification.
Screens
