Zelle Positioning and Redesign
In Winter 2023, I took IMC 390: Visual Communication, which covered human-centered design frameworks to develop visualizations for marketing, presentations, data analysis, websites, personal branding and more. My team came up with a new positioning strategy for Zelle based on our market research and designed a mobile application interface to improve the user experience.
Role: Class Project
Date: January 2023 — March 2023
Team: Matthew Coronado, Jiyoon Ha, Katie Shanley
Objective: How can Zelle improve its visual communication of its mission and value proposition? Which target audience should this communication be directed towards?
Skills: Figma, UI/UX Design, Market Research, Competitive Analysis
Key Insight: The payments network space has been dominated by messages of convenience and cybersecurity, but the real security people want is to know that they have control over their money.
Zelle provides the security and legitimacy consumers are looking for through their direct connection to bank accounts. Zelle can become more user-centric by playing a role in educating people in personal finance so that they feel confident and empowered when making transactions.
Fast, safe, and easy. Zelle is a digital payments network privately owned by the banks Bank of America, Truist, Capital One, JPMorgan Chase, PNC Bank, U.S. Bank, and Wells Fargo. It provides users with an easy way to send money directly between almost any US bank instantaneously. Currently, Zelle moves more money than competitors Venmo and Cashapp combined. Since 2017, more than five billion transactions and nearly $1.5 trillion have moved across the network. However, Zelle has fewer users: as of 2022, Zelle reached over 60 million users compared to Venmo's 83 million users and Paypal's 429 million users.
According to a 2020 Zelle press release, more than half of active users are ages 25-54, while boomers, ages 55-72, had been increasing their use of Zelle. While Zelle has continued to "double down" on its marketing towards older users, there is a clear business case for trying to reach the younger demographic of first-time bank account holders: Zelle makes money by processing transactions. Creating meaningful brand relationships with younger users means that Zelle can become their preferred platform for future transactions.
How can Zelle’s brand better appeal to first-time bank account holders?
Brand Kit
All the information you need at a glance.
After secure login with username and passcode, the app will open up to a homepage where the user can easily send or request money with one tap. These processes are separated so that the user won’t accidentally send money when they mean to make a request or vice versa.
They can also see all recent activity, such as payment requests requiring a response and their most recent transactions.
Secure transactions in a swipe.
Profile pictures, names, and phone numbers in the 'send' and 'request' interfaces make contacts easily identifiable — in comparison to the current text-only interface.
After confirming a payment and note, the user has to swipe up in order to finalize the send. This visceral user experience offers another layer of security and engagement.
Track your spending and create budgets.
To address our goal of increasing the usability of the app, we added an Activities tab where users can see the total income and spending of the month, categories of spending, and budget their money depending on goals the user can set by themselves.
Users will stay cognizant of their spending habits and stay on track with their savings, especially helpful for students starting to manage their own finances for the first time.
In addition to seeing their activity, the ‘Learn’ tab would bring educational content that Zelle already has published on their website to their mobile app. For example, Zelle can share videos on basic financial concepts as well as managing cybersecurity risks to ensure users feel confident making online transactions safely.