"You're that rates company, right?"
xe.com receives hundreds of millions of visitors per year, most of which check the site routinely to view currency rates. Over the past recent years however, XE has been wanting to increase user focus on their money transfer service. This was challenging however, since most users only knew Xe to offer currency information - nothing else.
Over the course of a year, I would be responsible for leading the UX research campaigns that contributed to the direction of Xe's flagship app overhaul and also the redesign of their website.
Methods for conducting research
We have gathered research on our website in a variety of ways:
- User testing
- Survey campaigns
- User Interviews
- User testing
- Survey campaigns
- User Interviews
The goal was that through getting different pieces of the story through these initiatives, we could have enough perspective to facilitate our redesign of the website.
User Testing
Prior to launching initiatives for testing, it was important for me to understand how the site performs with users today. To do this, we ran monthly unmoderated user tests via usertesting.com to see how users felt about doing everyday tasks on the site.
We gave users different scenarios and prompts and took the time to understand how different types of users would approach and understand our product.
In addition to recording the user’s session and feedback, we also collect:
- Time taken to complete tasks
- NPS score
- User’s rating for how they felt the experience to be
- Time taken to complete tasks
- NPS score
- User’s rating for how they felt the experience to be
Recurring patterns and themes
- Current currency converter is easy to use, and self explanatory
- For new users, it is hard to grasp the other solutions offered
- Lack of synergy across mid-market rate in relation to all our products
- What do you want from me? Why should I pick you?
Surveys
While benchmark testing would allow for us to keep a pulse on how our website routinely functioned, we needed to get in contact with our users and figure out exactly how they felt about our services.
To do this, we decided to run a survey on xe.com via surveymonkey. Because we knew we could get a lot of users to respond to our survey thanks to XE's high visitor rate, we also took the time to recruit users to a GDPR compliant mailing list where we could contact them directly to discuss more about their experiences.
Outcomes
Our survey had 23 questions total.
- 12,454 responses / 68% completion rate.
- 12,454 responses / 68% completion rate.
Recruited over 1500 users who expressed interest in joining our community research panel for further testing/research
Obtained information on user demographics, as well as their relationship, experience, and perception of XE.
Key Findings
Quite simply, a lot of users did not know we offered money transfer services (!)
" Did you know XE offers a money transfer service?"
51.87% of users are aware that XE offers an international money transfer service
- 48.13% did not know this service existed
- 48.13% did not know this service existed
Of those that were not aware this service existed, 44.82% indicated that they would be interested in this service
This was a recurring pattern. People simply did not know about the other services XE offered despite a significantly large number of people that would otherwise be willing to use them!
User Interviews
With the insight learned from the survey and the growing knowledge we received from the user testing sessions, we had to start talking with our users and find out how they felt about the money transfer services we offered today, and what we needed to do to improve our experience.
The mailing list we grew via the survey campaign gave us the ability to connect with these users and set up opportunities to conduct interviews with them. We were able to segment the list to specifically talk to users in our money transfer supported regions and find ones that have For their time, they would be rewarded $50 Amazon Gift Cards.
The interviews were conducted via Zoom and they allowed me to reveal a lot of insight on our money transfer service. This includes insight on our registration process, onboarding, and overall experience of sending money.
Photos of notes taken during an interview session with a user where we were picking their brain about how they use our services and how it compares to competitors.
Major Findings
Through the different research initiatives listed, we understood that XE had a couple issues:
Issue: Many people were familiar with the free currency information we provided, but did not know the other products we offered
Solution: Offer commitment free fluidity to our products to let customers flow between currency rates and money transfer exchange rates and provide context to explain how XE specializes in all things currency
Issue: A significant amount of users who did not know about our money transfer service stated that this was something they would actually use.
Solution: Add prompts and cues throughout the currency information pages to specifically address pain points these users felt and link it to our transfer solutions. Provide a calculator tool that could help them play with their own scenarios and figure out exactly what rate they would get if they send money with XE.
Issue: Of the users who did use our money transfer product, they felt that the overall registration and onboarding felt outdated when compared with our competitors.
Solution: Benchmark our competitors and refresh our product to provide an experience that both demonstrates our 25 year currency expertise and feels modern as well.
Outcomes
Following the data we collected from our initiatives, we had a lot of work to do. The first initiative was to redesign our currency app to totally overhaul how we do money transfers and how we integrate this service with our popular currency information.
A separate team, in partnership with New Republique would take this research along with additional findings to overhaul the xe.com public site and secure site. The UX of the secure site would follow the flows and logic designed for the app.
Our marketing team was in full effect, updating the money transfer information pages throughout the site, and making sure everything came full circle
So, what next?
Through event tracking, we have found that the new layouts for xe.com and the currency app has led to a significant increase in users accessing the quote screen, registering for an account, and successfully completing their transfers. Efforts are now put in place to continue enhancing UX of the products, responding to feature requests, and doing our best to ensure XE continues to deliver.
