Overview
Akimbo is a digital banking company that provides reloadable debit cards with simple-to-use budgeting tools and gift cards for both consumers and businesses. They came to us for help with a problem they saw in the industry – how to get value out of store-branded gift cards that people would receive and never use. They wanted to create a solution to help customers trade in store-branded gift cards for a digital Akimbo MasterCard gift card that could be used almost anywhere.
Research
We began the project by conducting research on existing gift card trade-in competitors, such as Cardpool and Cardcash. We found that there were many options for people to trade in gift cards. But there were also abundant negative reviews, mostly mentioning never being paid back and a general lack of trust in these companies. We saw that their was an opportunity for a more trustworthy and streamlined process for trading in gift cards.
We also distributed an online survey to 110 participants across a range of demographics. The survey covered topics such as giving and receiving gift cards, as well as opinions on app security and personal information. After synthesizing the results, we found 7 key findings that guided our designs.
Design
Using our key findings as guidance, we explored potential directions by sketching flows and screens. From there, we created several iterative rounds of wireframes to build out the entire experience. With the Buck app, users would be able to trade in store-branded gift cards for either a physical or digital Akimbo MasterCard gift card in a streamlined and secure process.
Because one of our findings was that users needed a better way to track gift card balances, the app also allows users to view transactions, balances, and card details.
Users are also able to purchase MasterCard gift cards on the app and send them to friends and family, along with a personalized message. They can then track whether the card has been activated.
Once wireframes were completed, we explored different visual directions. Akimbo wanted the Buck app to to be tied to their main Akimbo branding, but also stand out on its own. We provided three options and then narrowed to a combination of two of them. We created a detailed style guide and visual comps for many of the screens in the app to help guide front end development.