Illiterate friendly mobile wallet -UX Case Study

Research is done by students from Alliance University(India) and Centennial College(Canada) guided by Brett Matthews (Founder-Executive Director of My Oral Village). Year: 2018, Duration: 14 Days.

(At the time of working on this project, I had no knowledge about UX or UI)

Context

Illiterates are finding it troublesome to manage their finances, whether it could be sending money to their family or managing their daily/monthly expenses. It takes a great amount of effort for them to walk to a local bank and have them help with these tasks. This project is an effort to simplify mobile wallets for oral users (illiterates) and make their life a little bit easier.

• Illiterate individuals are unable to absorb much knowledge from scenarios that literate people can. This data is available in a variety of representations, including text and arithmetic notation, as well as textual hierarchies, abstractions, and mappings.
• A literate individual may have seen signals, received a demonstration from a friend or cash from a relative, or heard explanations from an agent before having to input data into a mobile money app. Literacy aids learning at every stage. Although an agent’s explanations are given orally, they do not stand alone, and she can quickly connect them to other pieces of information to construct a more complete picture.
• While she is learning how to use the app for the first time, she is probably already aware of what to expect and is looking for text prompts that indicate when she must make decisions and the types of inputs she must provide.
• An illiterate person, on the other hand, will not be able to recognize the text cues, no matter how well they have been primed in before. Signs, text messages, and pamphlets are far less accessible, and a lot of verbal information is confusing or even false. Each screen contains a key decision point that is accompanied with little hints as to what is at risk or what should be done next.

Team and responsibilities

Brett Matthews — Guiding the project.
Abhijeet Sharma — Help with user interviews.
Sri Vidya — Gathering subjects for the project and location set up.

Students:
Sahith Nayudu(ME) — Come up with solutions, prototyping, conduct user interviews, and language translation.
Manikiran — Come up with solutions, documentation, and Help with user interviews.
Fabio — Design, and build wireframes.

Though we had our responsibilities everyone participated in conducting user interviews.
I and Manikiran were the only people in the team who spoke the local language and could understand and communicate the subjects.

Executive Summary

What is “Orality”?
“Orality” refers to the modes of thinking, speaking, and managing information in societies where technologies of literacy (especially writing and print) are unfamiliar to most people. Orality encompasses not just speech but a wide range of modes for personal and collective information management that are preferred to text in oral cultures — from pictures, tallies, and cash, to apprenticeship, rituals, and songs.

Goal:

• To create a conceptual wireframe for a mobile wallet that can be used by ‘oral’ (illiterate and neo-literate) individuals.

Key Observations:

• Approximately 264 million Indians (23 million youngsters aged 15–24) are part of oral segment.
• Most oral adults cannot interpret multi-digit numeral strings (place-value) in big quantities, notably 4 or more digits (e.g. 5,045/5,405).
• This mathematical cognitive impairment will prevent users from using mobile wallets, leading them to ‘over-the-counter’ markets, whether they are literate or not.
• The new rupee symbol (₹) is still unknown to most conversational Indians.
• Men have honed their mental math skills to a higher level than women.
• In both sexes and across all cash-related jobs, skills improved with age.

The oral section has a number of advantages, including the capability to:

• read numerals with 1–2 digits.
• Color, proportional dimensions, structures, and images, as well as numbers, are used to count and manipulate 4-digit numeric amounts utilizing cash notes and coins.

The ‘neo numerate’ population (about one-third of the population in our sample):

• They could only decode one or two of the three numeral strings we showed in screening, but they did better in every aspects of our extensive numeracy diagnostic test, and the majority of them could read with decent fluency.

Mobile Wallet for Oral:

• In the oral segment, a unique user-centered design prioritizes usability and user experience.
• Uses principles and devices for oral information management (OIM).
• Provides a ’sandbox’ environment in which oral users can practice numeracy without risking cash loss.
• Oral iconography, declarative/mnemonic imagery, color, gesture, and voice are all used.
• Rapid prototyping, iteration between design and field, and usability testing are all part of the approach to help with ‘guessability’ and learnability.
• Users can safely enter large numbers using a unique cash-based ‘input-method editor’ (IME).
• Has money-sending, money-request, money-adding, bill-paying, and image-based phone book features. Suggestions for financial service providers and other shareholders.
• In digital financial services, the oral portion should be recognized as a separate entity.
• Youths aged 25–35, as well as users of other mobile phone functions such as calculators and address books, may be early adopters in this sector.
• For India, an open-source library of oral symbols should be created that covers the entire spectrum of digital financial services.

Research objective and background

Our goal was to create a front-end consumer interface for mobile wallets that addresses the oral (illiterate and semi-literate) market segment’s evidence-based usability constraints, resulting in a better customer experience.

Source: Digital Payment 2020, Global Financial Inclusion Database. Pratham. Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2014, ASER Centre, New Delhi, 2015.

In 2017, India has 468 million smartphone users, and by 2022, that figure is expected to rise to 859 million. (source: Business-Standard)

Field Observations

Screening (Reading, signing, and numeracy capabilities)

• A firm signature appears to be a reasonable proxy for reading skills. The majority of those who could sign clearly could also read swiftly. Those with wobbly signatures — those who had not yet practiced shaping the letters or had shaky erroneous signatures — and who signed slowly were considerably less likely to be able to read, even slowly.
• Numeracy was weaker than literacy: just about half of those who could sign clearly could read even one multi-digit number in less than 120 seconds.

• The numeracy problem — deciphering three numeral strings 4702, 5097, and 63801 — took most individuals longer than the other two tasks in each of the three categories. It was more challenging for them than the previous tasks, and they made more mistakes as a result.

How Indian oral population identifies notes?

We handed out the notes to groups of people and asked them to recognize them because we were curious about how illiterate people count money. We discovered that the oral population recognizes notes mostly based on color, relative size, and the picture of the numeral.

Other images, such as various themes and pictures on the backside of various notes, appear to be less important. The integer string on the center-front of each note was merely visually recognized; decoding it was not essential, though some respondents physically counted the number of zeroes, using this information in conjunction with the note’s color and relative size to identify it.

Counting Cash: An easy adaption for oral people

The participants were given $5,025 in cash and instructed to count it. Six distinct denominations were represented among the 40 cash notes and coins:
Thirteen ₹100s
One₹50
One ₹20
Seven ₹500s
thirteen ₹10s and five ₹5 coins
Nearly 3/4th of the sample, including the majority of neo-numerates, and nearly 2/3rd of innumerates, correctly answered the questions, with an average duration of 3 minutes and 18 seconds.

Observation 1: Seema from Siswan Village, Varanasi
Seema is a 35-year old housewife and a neo-numerate. We gave her a wad of notes comprising:
Seven ₹500 notes
Thirteen ₹100 notes
One ₹50
One ₹20
Thirteen ₹10 notes and five ₹5 coins.
She divided the money into denominations and totaled the 500 bills to get a total of 3,000 dollars.
We saw that she had a habit of chunking the sum in 1000. She piled up five 100 notes to get ₹1,000 and set aside 4,000 when she was left with only one 500 note. She placed the remaining 100 notes, totaling 800, and counted the lesser denominations individually, totaling 200.
By the end, her memory had failed her, and she couldn’t recall the first stack of 4,000, the second stack of 800, or the third stack of 200. She recounted the entire stack in the same manner and correctly added it up, including the 25 in 5 coins at the end.

When our team tested fake currency notes, most respondents mixed up the denominations of ₹20 and ₹1,000 since they were the same size.

Oral adaptation to the cash economy

In the cash economy, unschooled folks learn to count and calculate money either on their own or from more experienced people. Several abilities and methods for quick and easy understanding were visible as participants counted ₹5,025 in notes and coins. The 40 notes are added one by one, in no particular order, by novice counters, while the skilled use a decent chunking approach. A significant portion of the notes are organized into readily memorized categories (such as ‘4,000’ or ‘1,000,’ or all 100 and 500 notes).

The widespread use of multi-digit numeric strings and place value in financial reporting, on the other hand, has not resulted in satisfactory adaption among oral people. Incentives may be lower than expected given the perceived difficulty of learning. This is something that can be addressed through design.

Oral understanding of place value of digits

The participants were given a list of five multi-digit numerical strings and asked to identify the number 5,025 that they had just counted.

• Only 34 of the 88 attempts were successful, with an average time of 40 seconds.
• The majority of the 28 inaccurate responses were due to place value errors (i.e. 525, 5250, etc.) rather than numerical recognition issues.
• The pronunciation of zero is ‘nothing.’ For example, if the written meaning of zero is unclear, the digits ‘525’ appear rather believable.
• ‘5,520’ was the sole response that did not have the numbers in the correct order. Only a few people made this mistake.

Putting Digits Together

• Most participants were confused by zero unless it occurred just at the ending of the string. People made blunders like “four thousand, seven thousand, and two hundred” when asked to express the amount in rupees.
• People with low literacy levels can interpret single or double digits but struggle with four or five-digit numerical strings.
• The majority of innumerate subjects could only distinguish single digits, whereas neo-numerates could frequently detect two, three, or even four-digit strings. This results in the partial construction of numerals, such as 4,702 being called “forty-seven and two.”

The impact of cash economy on mental numeracy

Respondents were asked to conduct mental calculations for seven problems in order to assess their math abilities. They were awarded a score ranging from 0 to 7. (1 point for each right answer). The overall average score for the sample was 4.2. Respondents who were neo-numerate (5.0) performed far better than those who were innumerate (3.9).

People within the age group of 26–35 years could be early adopters of new mobile technology

(X): Age Group. (Y): Number of respondants.

• People in the 18–25 year old age group had poorer mental math skills than those in the 26–35 year old age group. As a result, elders outperformed their younger counterparts, owing to the fact that expertise with the cash economy enhances mental math over time.
• A good percentage (9 out of 38 participants) in the age group 26–35 could answer the question properly using a calculator. No one above the age of 35 was able to answer this question using a calculator.
• People between the ages of 26 and 35 have average mental math skills and are more likely to adopt new technology since they are more motivated and capable of learning at this age. As a result, this demographic has the potential to be among the first to adopt new mobile technology.

Note: Participants were provided mobile phones for calculations.

Mobile Wallet Interface

The screens that a user must go through when transmitting money from the BHIM UPI mobile wallet are depicted below.

Oral individuals have a hard time understanding the icons on these devices. Discussion Points Participants with varying reading levels were divided into groups to get an understanding of the features of mobile wallet interfaces. Initially, we’ll concentrate on functions such as:
1. Sending Money
2. Receiving Money
3. Typing in the IME (Input Method Editor)

Tested out some images which oral people could recognize

• Oral persons could identify the piggy bank and cash notes independently, but not the entire image with arrows.
• The home symbol was not recognized by some.
• 40% of those interviewed said they couldn’t tell the difference between the two faces.
• Call, receive and end buttons were recognized successfully by 90%.
• The subjects were able to decipher the arrows and identify the postman.
• The color red denoted a halt. Green was destined to leave. The color yellow denoted a faster pace.

Observations from Focus Discussion Groups

It is easier for literate individuals to understand abstract iconography than it is for oral people.

• Most oral people were able to interpret icons that looked exactly like what they signified, such as buses, airplanes, and electricity.
• The front of a railway engine, an arrow to signal transmit money to a wallet, a plus sign, and a rupee symbol to add money to a wallet, to mention a few, are examples of abstract symbols or symbolic representations that most people do not comprehend. Literates can understand abstract icons since they can read the accompanying language to confirm what they represent.
• We discovered that many people associated money movement with hand postures that corresponded to real-life money exchange. They explained how the palms open stance denotes giving money and the hand on top denotes seeking money.

Colors can be used to prepare oral individuals. Because they identify a mobile wallet with a phone, any icon that is green in color is for proceed, just like tapping the green button to accept a call. Similarly, if the icon is red, it denotes cancellation, same as the red icon denotes rejecting a call.

The vernacular language is understood by a large percentage of the population, but English is not. As a result, mobile wallets may make it easier for people to use vernacular language to access wallets.

Many people in our sample were innumerate and illiterate, hence:

• They have a harder problem remembering an alphanumeric PIN than memorizing photographs of real-life objects; the latter has higher recall accuracy for a longer period of time. The numeric PIN is also pretty easy for them to remember, but when it comes to letters of the alphabet, they are unable to recognize and hence link to them.
• A handful of people were unable to decode money using four-digit numeral sequences. They were, on the other hand, able to recognize monetary notes and conduct any numeric calculations with them.

Bill payments, merchant payments, and sending/receiving money are the most popular mobile wallet transactions within the oral category.

• They would be hesitant about transacting big sums of money through a mobile wallet as early adopters.
• The major benefit of employing the above-mentioned use-cases is the ease with which they improve accessibility.

Cash-Based Input Method Editor designed for oral users

Entering the amount to send the money is not an easy task for the oral as they perceive the numbers visually and not quantitatively.

Standard Numeric IME

We saw that one of the oral subjects owns a shop and has no issue counting money.
She also used the above-mentioned stacking techniques.
I had another oral subject make a simulated purchase using several denominations of money, such as ₹100, ₹200, ₹500, ₹1000, and ₹2000.
The subject adds up the notes to the price of a goods and purchases it. I devised a cash-based calculator based on the observations I made in the store and from Seema previously.

Drag And Drop

Users can choose the note, drag it and drop it in the box.

For oral users, the cash-based IME provides a safety net. The cumulative quantity of monetary units is visible in the upper panel, making mistakes easy to spot (grey in the diagram). A interested user can also manipulate the cash inputs to see how they affect the Indo-Arabic number string, thus learning place value. The concept of error correction is based on currency counting, not numeric input. A user who has added five 100-rupee notes and a 50-rupee note to make the total ₹550. If the user presses the red backspace button, the last note input will be deleted, leaving an entry of ₹500.

Deepening usability and safety: Multi-coding

The only way to assure transaction integrity is to have an effective two-way information flow. As a result, several codes can be employed in mobile wallets as a measure of safety to reinforce the belief of oral users that they are following the correct method when performing the transaction. The following are some of these codes:

Iterations of the icon

Before arriving at the final icons, the interface design went through several versions. Through each iteration, icons for Indian piggy banks (gulaks), wallets, hand gestures, arrows, and monetary notes were created and updated.

Iterations

Many participants thought gulaks were only for kids, so it was tough to come up with a unique wallet design. When’request money’ and ‘contribute money’ had to be distinguished, arrows generated misunderstanding. The photos below show how the “send money” icon evolved over time with the help of rapid prototyping in the field.

For Send and Request Money, Hand motions like the ones shown in the diagram were the easiest to interpret. They, like many oral abstractions, are easily grasped by literates and are likely to appeal to a variety of user groups. Participants in an oral focus group fully comprehended them, and they contributed an important graphic dimension: money ‘sent’ goes down from giver to receiver, and money is received from above.

Transaction Process — Send Money

As the team evaluated numerous layouts and came up with final wireframes, these wireframes went through multiple focus group revisions.

Features:

Bringing oral people out of number Anxiety

-BHIM UPI pin input screen.

• Inputting numbers is a difficult task for the oral.
• Having similar input for different purposes is confusing for oral subjects.
• They assume the phone number or amount to be transferred will go into this field for the pin.
• It is hard to remember a 4 digit number. They tend to forget it or write it somewhere in a book and eventually forget it.

This is the problem with remembering their ATM PIN too.

Few solutions for the pin input

While asking them to choose few numbers we observed this dots system worked only till number 6. After number 6 they tend to get overwhelmed with the dots.

Here, They spend too long to count and this lines system worked only till number 5.

Although few subjects struggled with the numbers 8 & 9, This solution seemed to work successfully compared to other designs.

It was easy for the subjects to interpret the hand signs and didn’t have to struggle.

Subjects find it hard to remember a pin and hence they write down on a book and use it when needed. Keeping this in mind, images worked the best for icons, these mnemonic input methods would increase the chances of remembering the pin and also differentiate it from other input methods through the app.

• Unlike other methods, It would take some time for the subjects to associate a number to an image. We have chosen images that look similar to the numbers to make it easier for the subjects.

Testing Usability

Methodology and procedure for evaluating our solution’s usability

Results of first usability test: Send money

The usability of the completed wireframes was assessed with 29 individuals who were tested for numeracy. Here are the results of ‘send money’ test:

Observations

13 of the 15 who were screened for numeracy were found to be innumerate, and 2 were determined to be neo-numerate. Each person received a 5-minute tutorial on how to utilize the clickable prototype, which was built with Invision from wireframes. While the test went very well, there was clearly space for improvement:

•Finding the mobile phone number was the most difficult task, while selecting 550 in the notes proved to be the most straightforward.

•The ’send money’ graphic that was generated during the experiment was highly accepted, with 12 out of 15 people getting it right on the first try.

•People reported problems finding the appropriate fields to enter their cellphone number, money, and other information. As a result, the input field can be shown in light green, while the ones that aren’t yet important can be greyed out.

•Through naked eyes, people had difficulty distinguishing the amount of notes they had selected, as shown in IME. As a result, a black border around all notes or a circle placed above the notes (because most respondents understand single-digit numbers) will aid them in determining whether they have entered the proper amount in IME.

•People found green to be simpler to recognize as right, so the ‘yes’ tick should be green on a white backdrop (not the reverse).

•People who thought the black-colored home icon was being highlighted were distracted and pressed it in the middle of a transaction. As a result, the icon against which users must enter their information should only be highlighted at specific times.

Results of second usability test: Send money

Observations

The second usability test produced results that were very similar to the first.

•A personal briefing, as well as a mock demo film, were useful tools for teaching individuals about transactions.

•The average result score was higher than it had been in previous tests.

• However, participants in this usability test found it difficult to select currencies in the cash-based IME.

Next Steps

Students from Alliance University and Centennial College collaborated with My Oral Village to conduct research on digital wallet adoption for the oral market segment, which helped students from Alliance University and Centennial College gain a better understanding of the oral market segment’s behavior in India.

• To come up with design ideas for MoWO — Mobile Wallet for Oral, we used quick prototyping of wireframes. However, because testing is an ongoing process, My Oral Village will continue to undertake similar research in order to improve the appearance and feel of MoWO and expand the number of transactions available.
• In India, the payment environment has been undergoing a fundamental shift, aided by new developments. New mobile apps are continually emerging, and MoWO can be customized based on service offerings.
• Similar studies for oral segments will be conducted by My Oral Village across other geographies.

Take-Aways

I was excited and had a lot of preconceptions before starting the project because it was the first time I had taken part in a project like this in 2018. However, since we began the interviews, my entire perspective of users has shifted. Here are some major takeaways:

• I realized assumptions keep us in a box, Taking feedback from the users and listening to them with open-mindedness and patience helped me understand the users better.
• Unintentionally I made the subjects feel uncomfortable asking too many questions at the starting but I learned through it and eventually I maintained a balance with warm-up questions.
• Asking questions out of the subject helped me with more behavioral insights, for example: After asking these questions about her daily life an oral subject revealed that she owned a shop and that helped me organize a mock purchase, and observations from this led me to come with the cash calculator.
• Observing users perform the tasks given the best validation for our ideas.
• Realized being emotionally attached to ideas while ideating is not a good thing. Users are better to judge by it.
• Had to make use of resources at the moment to accomplish tasks on time.