Tide is one of the world’s leading digital business financial platforms. With over 500,000 UK members, they are focused on bringing companies the best experience, not just in banking but in all areas of running a successful business.

The Problem

To allow business owners to take in-person payments directly into their Tide business account.

To solve this, Tide introduced its first Card Reader. It allows small to medium businesses (SMEs) to get paid in person by creating payments in their Tide app and taking payments with a Tide Card Reader device. Below are some of the initial research steps I started with when approaching this problem: 

1. Research market competitors and define feature sets based on business and user requirements

2. Run workshops with stakeholders, PMs and tech to help define suggested product features 

Challenges

• Not possible to create a transaction on the Card Reader device itself
  (in-app only)

• MVP build for a small targeted audience

• Various ways for users to find and purchase a Card Reader
  (poor in-app discovery)

• Not having a Card Reader device to interact with

User Testing

From my research and initial designs, I conducted two rounds of unmoderated UserZoom testing. Each had 10 SME business owners based in the UK. The tests included 4 tasks based on the lists below: 

Feature Usability:
Sign up and purchase a Card Reader 
Create and Take a Payment 

Feature Discovery:
Find where to refund and explore payments taken

Comprehension of Terminology:
Settlements - 24-hour period of money taken with Card Reader
POS - Point of Sale

Test Results

User testing revealed encouraging results in the user’s abilities to sign up, create and take payments with their Card Reader. We felt confident in the first design iteration with only a few tweaks needed to be ready for build.

• 100% of the participants successfully completed the 4 tasks

• Users found the feature extremely easy to use

• Users were extremely confident they could take a payment
  and find settlements tabs

• Unable to successfully explain what Settlements meant

• No clear naming result of the feature

Users showed signs of confusion around the labelling of certain features. For example, users struggled to explain what a “settlement” was. (The total amount taken in card reader sales in a 24-hour period.)

To solve this problem we decided to explore a few more options: 

1. A ‘more information’ section within the settlement tab

2. An education tutorial was added to explain Card Reader usage and terminology for first-time users 

Further Results

The results of the feature education tutorial were promising. They showed users had a higher understanding of the features of the Card Reader product. I felt confident that this feature would be a great addition to the Card Reader product and also reusable for some of Tide’s other more complex products.

Outcomes and Future 

Tide Card Reader was successfully launched in June 2023 to a select user base and currently has 150 users and over 250+ orders. It’s Tide’s first external piece of hardware to be released, marking a milestone for the brand.

Tide Plans to release more Card Reader products into the market in 2023 and beyond, to allow more users to get the correct device they need to match their business needs.