Samsung Pay
Samsung Pay is a global mobile wallet/payment service supporting Android phones and wearable devices. Since its first launch in Korea and the US in the fall of 2015, the number of supported markets has increased to more than 20, covering Asia, America and Europe. For more about the service :
In this project, we had a 7 person UX team. The team consisted of 4 Interaction designers and 3 visual designers and I led the interaction design.
Goal
UX team’s goal was creating a new form of offline payment experience based on advanced technology.
Samsung Pay’s biggest differentiator is its offline payment solution called MST(Magnetic Secured Transmission). With magnetic signal including encrypted card information generated by the device, users can pay at any store that supports traditional plastic payment cards.
Technical advantage doesn’t always lead to success of the service. People tend to keep their old habits unless new solution has greater advance from user experience perspective. To change their behavior, Samsung Pay had to provide more convenient and easier experience than paying with cash or plastic cards.
Research
I conducted 1:1 interviews with 8 people. Through the interview I wanted to figure out users’ current perception of mobile payment applications, and what would be their expectation to Samsung Pay UX.
The biggest pain point of mobile wallet users was the long app launching process. Imagine you are trying to pay with your mobile app right in front of the POS(Point Of Sales). And think about the boring look of the clerk and other customers in line behind you. You’ll never use that app again. These steps are pretty normal for mobile applications, but for offline payment it is extremely long and frustrating procedure.
UX concept & Principles
“The fastest and easiest payment method.”
Samsung Pay should require minimum actions
Samsung Pay should help user focused and not be interrupted by any interactive, visual elements through the whole payment process
Samsung Pay should indicate the status and deliver how to use information clearly
Offline payment UX
1. One step app launch
The app launch process was the most crucial factor of Samsung Pay user experience and it had to be a one step interaction.
I designed several interactions. And I wanted to get rid of ideas which have possibility of malfunction or could be felt complicated to users. I finally invented the interaction imitating the common action of people pulling cards out of their wallets. It was the most intuitive and also accurate interaction.
2. Fast card selection
I conducted an online survey on office workers and got information that people possess maximum 3~5 credit/debit cards in average and number of frequently used cards is only 1~2. That means once users select a card, they will hardly change that.
Based on this data, I designed the card list filled with one big highlighted card artwork.
3. Clear guidance
Samsung Pay’s biggest advantage is its compatibility with old plastic card readers. But, how many users could succeed payments with no how-to-use information?
Card readers have a rail for plastic card swiping. There’s no affordance of placing a smart phone onto it. How can we lead user to do so?
I researched most used types of card readers in the US and Korea, selected one shape for each country. Then made illustrations describing the card reader and placement of the phone. The guide image is displayed during payment mode as default.
Achievements
Samsung Pay is scoring 4.7/5.0 in Google Play Store. The ease of use and simplicity have got many compliments.
In 2019, The number of Samsung Pay users in Korea exceeded 14 million and accumulated payment amount is more than 40 billion won.
More than 80% of offline payment transactions with mobile applications are made by Samsung Pay.
Also in US, more than 8 million users have been registered to the service.
In 2018, Samsung Pay was one of the most frequently used application on Samsung Galaxy S9/S9+ devices following Galaxy’s preloaded apps(Phones, Settings, Camera, Gallery etc.) and Google Play Store, Facebook, Youtube, Chrome browser (*From user log data research)
In 2019, Samsung Pay was selected as the most crucial factor of repurchasing Galaxy phones from customer in their twenties. (*From user survey on 1,040 customer in US and Korea)