MY ROLE

UX Lead for Converge

TEAM

Talaia Whisenant

Josh Cothran

Tanya Cardoza

DURATION

2019 - Present

OVERVIEW

Single Sign On is an identity management initiative to manage merchant accounts at Elavon.

Imagine signing up for two Elavon apps, having to remember two sets of credentials, and not having in app access to each product that ultimately should be integrated or consolidated. This fragmented experience was not only a pain for merchants, but also caused security gaps in Elavon products.

Our leadership team prioritized using a single identity management system called Elavon Connect to convert all accounts to single sign on, logging into Connect with just an email and password.

Through research and testing, the design team created a frictionless login experience that resonated with merchants, allowed for integrated products and features, and helped secure their accounts and data.

BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT

I joined the project as the lead designer for Converge.

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Lack of a core team.

PROBLEM

Merchants don’t have in app access to their applications.

This is a part of a larger problem at Elavon where apps that should be integrated are instead sold as separate products. For instance, merchants may have an app to process transactions, and an app for tracking the financial health of their businesses. Unlike modern payments applications, at Elavon there is no connection between these two experiences.

Another problem is merchants at Elavon also have to manage multiple sets of credentials for different applications.

How might we give merchants in-app access to all of their applications while encouraging integrated app experiences for financial products at Elavon?

HYPOTHESIS

Branding SSO as Elavon Connect will cause confusion.

I hypothesized that disrupting the merchant’s mental model for logging into their products would cause confusion and potentially an increase in support call volume.

WIREFRAMES AND MESSAGING

We worked with UX writers to try to create clear messaging throughout the flows.

WIREFRAMES

After many brainstorming sessions, and single sign on market analysis of other applications who had implemented it, we created UI designs for testing the flows with Elavon merchants.

We decided to use product brand colors on product screens, and Elavon brand colors during the Elavon Connect process to give a universal look and feel for products that would eventually adopt Connect SSO.

UI DESIGNS

After many brainstorming sessions, and single sign on market analysis of other applications who had implemented it, we created UI designs for testing the flows with Elavon merchants.

We decided to use product brand colors on product screens, and Elavon brand colors during the Elavon Connect process to give a universal look and feel for products that would eventually adopt Connect SSO.

TEST GUIDE

We performed a series of moderated in person and virtual usability studies to see how merchants performed in the flows.

We created a research plan, test plan, test cases, and tested the main use cases with clickable prototypes. I wanted to understand if the account update and linking processes made sense, or if merchants were confused by the flows. Also how they would login to single sign on after SSO account creation.

USABILITY TESTING

After testing an affinity mapping I created a research readout.

The purpose of the readout was to report to the product teams how well or poorly the designs performed, and any additional insights that could help us make decisions.

KEY FINDINGS

NEW CHALLENGES

Our legal team asked us to remove the “Connect” branding. What?

Another challenge—one of the biggest yet—is that our legal team told us we could not brand the experience... at all. The best that we could do was call the process “Single sign on”. There were many discussions following this decision, and we knew that removing the branding would confuse our merchants and affect SSO account conversions. We would be taking away the context around creating an SSO account and the brand to orient them.

Also, most of our merchants are from an older demographic, and do not know what single sign on is. We tried hard to have the decision reversed, and asked to test the unbranded UI with a pilot group.

OUTCOMES

Support calls increased.

After updating the designs and removing the branding we tested my hypothesis in production, releasing single sign on to a small pilot group. Almost immediately support volume increased as users were confused about the process. We had taken the users out of their platform experience with zero branding—and many didn’t know what single sign on was. Drop off rates were high.

These learnings were vital as it gave UX a chance to make a case for maintaining application branding through the account update process. We also worked with our risk team to simplify the flows—removing unnecessary steps.

NEW HYPOTHESIS

Consistent application branding and even clearer messaging will reduce friction in the flows.

We were tasked with re-working and updating the flows, and figuring out the branding. Previously we were told we could not use “Elavon Connect”, but we worked with our product owner, and marketing to push for branded messaging, and pre launch emails.

We also made the case for keeping the user in their platform, using product colors and branding that they were used to—through the SSO account creation process.

SOCIALIZATION

Consistent application branding and even clearer messaging will reduce friction in the flows.

We were tasked with re-working and updating the flows, and figuring out the branding. Previously we were told we could not use “Elavon Connect”, but we worked with our product owner, and marketing to push for branded messaging, and pre launch emails.

We also made the case for keeping the user in their platform, using product colors and branding that they were used to—through the SSO account creation process.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

How might we improve the single sign on experience for our merchants?

I revised my hypothesis and theorized that adding branding back to the experience would improve account update success rates.

JOURNEY MAP

I worked with the support team to create a journey map to identify the pains merchants were experiencing during SSO account creation. The lack of branding was a huge issue making the sign up experience convoluted and unclear.

UPDATED USER FLOW

The UX team went to work revising the flows and working with the application, customer support, security to teams to remove steps. Instead of taking the user out of their application during sign up, we would use apis and keep them in their apps, maintaining branding.

IDEATION

We created a preliminary brand to test with, and updated messaging gaps as needed. The red dots indicate some of the changes.

The changes include:

• Branding the experience

• Working with marketing to send early communications via email

• Creating help documentation

• Keeping application components through the experience for familiarity

• Removing the extra step—filling out knowledge based questions

A/B CONCEPT TESTING

I created moderated A/B tests to test the new flows against the old ones.

To avoid bias I flipped the new and old flows for scenario and participant.

A/B TESTING RESULTS

PROTOTYPE

OUTCOMES AND NEXT STEPS