As the wasting resource issue is growing more seriously every year, several industries have launched multiple policies to help reducing production of unnecessary receipts. Being created along with digital wallet, digital receipts are considered to be the most likely future replacement of paper receipts.

The project’s goal was to design a mobile based platform for users to receive, keep and manage all their receipts. Before starting designing, a current solution map was created based on marketing research on popular replacement of paper receipts as well as users’ feedback on existed solutions.

For business intend, receipts apps are designed to ease the process of reimbursement.

Receipts scanning technology has been well-developed to import paper based receipts to your device.

Department stores start providing receipts by email to customers.

Or you can try the basic way —— Take a photo of your receipt and keep it in album.

I have a lot of choices at this time point actually. Involving users in the early stage is always my preference because changing frames at final stages at a project is always the worst thing to do.

Considering time limitation and insisting that users need to be involved during the first round test, I chose to conduct a simple and quick mvp test with the minimal visualization and details. The main goal is to test if the information architecture is working, if the navigation system is good enough and if it’s too much information for users to accept.

The first round user testing aims at finding issues with information display, basic navigation and collecting suggestions on visual elements. The test is conducted among 4 objects who are all from Design major to help critique. In the first round iteration, users are required to accomplish 4 actions.

1. Browse through the app and see if there would be any obstacle.
2. Figure out how to use your camera take a photo.
3. Looking for a certain recipe received on January 1.
4. Tell the author how many ways they could reach “calculator” page.

Because all of my test users are from design background, we conducted a focus group discussion after testing.

Navigation tab can involve more functions.

Compared to “Calculator”, “Calendar” function is more reasonable.

Consistency should be kept – bottom banner can’t disappear on some of the pages.

Tutorial or instruction needed.

Axure Prototype is available at https://github.com/Lisiismadeofmilktea/recptsprototype

Before start using, users need to set up an account or log in with existed social media account. It avoid data losing when users switch to a new device.

Once logged in, it will automatically lead users to the front page which includes buttons and hot spots to access all functions. The most frequently used function should be adding new receipts which is designed as the primary information displayed on the front page.

Once tapped the add button, it will automatically switch to the scan camera page. Users can switch input mode to “take a photo” by swiping right. There would be a slide at bottom of screen indicating current mode.

The app is compatible with two ways for inputting receipts : Scan the QR code displayed while paying, or, take a photo of receipt displayed on screen and automatically turn it into digital text with text recognition technology.

With the advantage of collecting user’s receipts in their daily life, the app provides a calendar function helping users to track their daily expense. It could serve as a account keeper and show user’s expenses record,  composition, spend power and trend.

Users can set up an expense alert line in each spending category (for example : grocery, entertainment, academic, etc)and the app could send a reminder when they are close to their spending limitation in certain category.

The article section is designed for companies, associated organizations and related business to post promotions, advocations and recent information/update on paperless industries to revoke user’s consciousness of protecting environment as well as build up a eco society.

Here is the receipt interface when users would like to check their receipt history. Users are able to check the receipt by date, by business/shops and by keyword research. The receipts could be edited and shared by users.

Ideally, the product can face not only personal customers but also business clients especially for reimbursement. The website platform will ensure users can store, management and export those files for further usage. The user story and journey is quite similar as the phone platform but more leaning towards “what’s happening after collecting the receipts”

The motivation of business customers using this platform is way different from individual customers. We need to think about them as well. Mobile platform is convenient and user-friendly, but in a business scenario, desktop platform is more prevail and acceptable.

In order to further develop more in the desktop platform, some more user research need to be done in order to learn user story context. It was difficult for me to get a real “targeted user” because as a student, I only have limited access to users.

I chose to invite users to a role play game to help them know a bit more about the scenario and content. Before inviting users, I did some desktop research to see who’s our typical user and designed some “character feature” cards for participants. Limited by project schedule (as the desktop platform is already a bonus part for the project), I invited 2 students with quite a lot of internship experience to be the object.

Here is the keywords I provided to the participants.  In the “role play game storm”, the two person will play as the business user of our product, and walk through the overall process of arriving at hotel, ordering food from room, and going shopping at stores. After that, participants were invited to use paper cards to design the user flow of management system. In this particular process, two different users are included —— the company and the business people. Two participants were playing those two different roles.

The main difference of desktop business platform and mobile personal platform is the function. With business customers being targeted users, the platform serves more as a management and reimbursement software. So I decided to dig a little bit deeper into the reimbursement process.

User flow could be created based on what information they need to provide and what interaction steps they need to finish.

As the quick demo shows, the product can help users manage and check their receipts on desktop platform quite easily and show their spending record by months.

Users can check their receipts which include item name, number, price, retail store, address, time, payment method information. This can not only help users build their receipt library but also help them to regulate spending record.

In the first step of reimbursement, users will category and indicate the project it is reimburse for. Letting users put in all information in one step is overwhelming so I chose to split information “prior to reimbursement” and “during reimbursement”.

With access to modify and revise all the reimbursement items, users need to indicate the reimbursement payment method by simply selecting from previous lists. They can upload or add notes to the company if they want.

With two clicks, the process is done! Users can keep in track about the process and will be told about the person who is currently processing it.