Quinn Kessler“John,” the default payer
“I didn’t want to request again in Venmo, it feels aggressive.”
Did the math on a calculator and didn’t know Venmo could split. Once sent $40 to a stranger with a similar name.
Venmo
How college students split costs on Venmo, and where it breaks down. Splitting is easy to start and awkward to finish: the app leaves the math, the chasing and the recovery to the person who paid. I turned the research into a storyboarded concept, tested it with students, and animated it.
- My role
- Solo UX researcher
- Timeline
- Fall 2026 · IDM 418
- Focus
- Group payments between college students
- Methods
- Survey, interview guide, practice interviews, persona, journey map, storyboarding, storyboard testing, concept animation
Storyboard tested · concept animation in progress
01 · Survey
18 students, one pattern
I surveyed 18 college students about the last time they split a cost. Most splits are food, and the person who pays is left doing the math and the follow-up on their own.
72%Did the split math themselves, outside Venmo
50%Had to remind a friend to pay them back
50%Have had a payment problem
2.2/5Confidence that support would help
02 · Persona
Maya, the group tab keeper
Maya is a junior who lives off campus with three roommates and has used Venmo daily since high school.
“I’m always the one who pays first, then spends a week getting everyone to Venmo me back.”
Her scenario: she covers a $142 birthday dinner for five friends and has to collect from everyone. Weeks later, a payment sent to the wrong person shows her what happens when something goes wrong.
Her goals are to get paid back fast, split without manual math, keep things friendly, and know real help exists if something breaks.
03 · Interviews
Practicing the guide
I wrote a 25-minute interview guide that walks through each stage of a group expense and ends with a think-aloud task: split an $84 dinner three ways. To test it, I ran three practice interviews with simulated participants built from the survey patterns.
“Drew,” pays their own way
“Tell me why a payment failed. ‘Try again later’ means nothing.”
The friend paying back, not the payer, so follow-up was easy. A concert payment failed twice with no reason.
“Anthony,” burned twice
“After that it won’t let you nudge again, so then it’s on me to text him.”
Scammed on a ticket and couldn’t reach a person. Now checks profile photos before every payment.
04 · Journey map
Two low points
Mapping Maya’s dinner from plan to cash-out shows two dips. The first is waiting and following up, when re-requesting feels aggressive and Venmo only allows one nudge. The second is when something goes wrong: a failed payment that says “try again later,” money sent to the wrong person, and no clear way to reach a human.
05 · Opportunities
- Smart remindersFriendly nudges that come from Venmo, not Maya, with a schedule instead of a one-nudge limit.
- Split by defaultEnter the total once and see each share, with requests labeled clearly: “$142 split four ways” vs. “$142 each.”
- Group progressA bar that shows who has paid, so nobody has to ask.
- Account-status clarityPlain-language reasons when a payment fails, and another way to pay right away.
- Recipient checkWarn before paying an account with no mutual friends, plus a one-minute undo window.
I took split by default, smart reminders, group progress and clear failure messages into a concept story.
06 · Storyboard
Settling the birthday dinner
An 18-frame story in three acts. Maya covers the $142 dinner, splits it in Venmo, and lets Venmo do the chasing. When a friend’s card fails, the app tells him why and offers another way to pay. Each frame is grounded in a survey number or a journey map opportunity.
07 · Storyboard testing
Real enough, too dramatic
I wrote a 15-minute interview script and walked three college students who use Venmo through the storyboard one page at a time, asking them to think out loud before I asked anything.
3/3Summarized the story correctly
4.5/5Average match to their own experience
3/3Said Maya’s emotions were too intense
2/3Asked for an itemized split
- Too dramaticSplitting with friends is low stakes. Maya went from frustrated and celebrating to mildly annoyed and relieved.
- Midnight mathMemorable, but most people would do it the next day. It moved to the next morning over coffee.
- Even split doesn’t fit dinnerEveryone orders different things. Split a Bill became Scan Receipt, which assigns each person’s items plus tax and tip, with even split kept as an option.
- Reminder timing misread“After 2 days” looked like reminders already sent. It became a timeline: today, a Day 2 nudge, a Day 5 nudge.
- Why a Venmo nudge?Not everyone saw how it beats a text. The nudge now lists what they ordered and pays with one tap.
- Kept as isThe failed-payment frame. All three explained it without prompting.
08 · Animation
The concept, in motion
I scripted the revised story shot by shot and animated it as a short concept video, so the idea can be understood in about a minute and a half without me in the room.
Next: polish the animation, then turn Scan Receipt and Smart Reminders into screens to test.