Signature with PIX: Innovation in Digital Authentication
The company decided to gain visibility in the national media and enhance its brand positioning as an innovative company.
Project
Digital Product for Lawtech
My role
Product Designer
Main result
Over 3,000 subscriptions and a 95% success rate.
Period
2021
The Challenge
How can we create an innovative and secure authentication method for B2B users, leveraging PIX technology to position the company as a leader in innovation in the legal market?
Business Context
In 2021, with the rapid adoption of PIX in Brazil, the company identified a dual strategic opportunity: to develop a differentiated technological solution and to gain national visibility as an innovative company in the legal sector.
Objective: To be a pioneer in launching subscriptions via PIX.
Timeframe: 2 months for development and delivery.
Business objective: To consolidate an innovative brand positioning.
Process
To be pioneers in launching subscriptions via PIX, the team had only two months to develop and deliver the solution. Applying the Lean UX methodology, we formulated hypotheses and structured experiments to validate them.
Discovery técnico e de negócio
As a Product Designer, I supported the Product Manager, who led the technical mapping of how PIX technology works and the business model study for this new offering.
Pesquisa com usuários
I led the research process with the support of the Content Designer.
Ideation
Collaborative work in which I acted as a Product Designer, alongside a Product Manager, Content Designer, and Tech Lead.
Prototyping
I worked as a Product Designer, building interfaces and prototypes with the support of the Content Designer.
Tests
I led the recruitment process, research planning, and usability testing with the support of the Content Designer.
Analysis and iteration
I conducted the analysis and synthesis of the test results together with the Content Designer.
Handoff
I prepared the delivery documentation for the developers.
Results analysis
The Product Manager analyzed the results after they were made available to users, and I assisted in documenting and consolidating the findings.
Discovery
We interviewed internal stakeholders and, using the collected data, worked on an opportunity tree. At the time, we identified only two possible experiments.
Research Desk
We gathered data on Pix technology and usage in Brazil.
Pix reaches 25% of
Brazilians, moves R$ 203 billion
...There are already 735 institutions approved as participants in Pix...
Source: Exame
Pix has 100 million registered keys.
Pix is free for individuals for both money transfer and purchase transactions. [...]
It can have up to five keys.
Source: Agência Brasil
Pix has nearly 4.4 million key portability transactions.
It's a natural progression from the start of Pix operations, where many people registered their key...
Source: Agência Brasil
What is PIX?
Pix is an instant payment solution, created and managed by the Central Bank of Brazil (BC), that enables transfers and payments.
Source: Central Bank of Brazil
The Product Manager conducted an analysis to help us understand how the subscription system using PIX technology would work, starting with a transaction with the Central Bank. This was important for understanding the user experience.
Research
We needed to understand more about PIX and users' needs regarding strong authentication for signatures. To do this, we defined some research methods:
Exploratory interviews
Entender se há problemas relacionados à autenticação
Research Desk
Entender funcionamento do PIX
Benchmark
Entender padrões de transações bancárias
Usability test
Avaliar o risco de aceitação e uso
Post-test interview
Assess people's perception of the solution.
Exploratory interviews
We identified that users who felt the need for stronger authentications had businesses with a high risk of fraud. Therefore, these customers might be more likely to adopt PIX (Brazil's instant payment system).
We interviewed 22 clients.
Benchmark
I analyzed the use of PIX with several banks and we were able to learn some important points that should be considered in the design:
QR codes might be impractical on mobile devices.
Pix Copy and Paste was simpler on Mobile.
Using QR codes on a desktop computer in conjunction with a smartphone app was simple.
Ideation
I designed several flows outlining how the user journey would work and aligned on them multiple times with the Product Manager, Content Designer, and Tech Lead until we arrived at the final flow, which was validated by stakeholders.
Experience narratives
The Content Designer worked on narratives to help us explore how to make the PIX subscription experience more natural and easier to understand. I supported her in building these narratives, and they were important for creating wireframes.
Wireframes
I designed several low-fidelity screen flow versions to quickly explore ideas, aligned multiple times with the Product Manager, Content Designer, and Tech Lead until we arrived at the final flow, which was validated by stakeholders.
Signature with PIX, with the security of the Central Bank.
The Interface
Our main challenge was creating a reliable signature flow: during testing, some users found it strange to receive a document to sign and then make a PIX payment.
Furthermore, we needed to present information in a simple and concise way, since usability tests showed that most people didn't read lengthy texts. Even so, it was crucial to clearly state the essential points for authentication to function correctly.
Usability Testing
To assess the risk of acceptance and usability, we built prototypes for testing. We conducted 21 tests with people from within the company and some clients. After each test, we conducted interviews. This research was carried out by me and the Content Designer.
In this stage of the project, I developed the research plan. With the help of the Product Manager, we recruited users and ran the tests, which I moderated while the Content Designer took notes.
Challenges
Several interviews were conducted with people from other areas of the company who were not involved in product development; however, we would have liked to have tested with more users and non-users of the system.
We needed to simulate a scenario as close to reality as possible, as we needed to assess acceptance and understanding.
The Pix payment step required two people to simulate sending the Pix key in real time during the test.
We couldn't mislead users with too much context.
Analysis
We created a spreadsheet with each screen the user would go through, and noted positive and negative points, observations about their interaction, and tried to identify their emotions during the journey.
Lessons learned from the research
We believe that with the resources we had, we were able to achieve a fluid and simple experience for a first version.
During the testing period, we modified the prototype several times to evaluate what worked best in the interface, maintaining a cycle of evaluation and adjustments. We stopped iterating when the results started to repeat themselves.
Verbal explanations should be sufficient for quick understanding, but care must be taken not to generate further questions or display lengthy texts, as this could reduce the reading rate.
The completion of the process became faster and easier for users to understand with each iteration.
The mobile version should prioritize the use of Pix copy and paste, while the desktop version should prioritize QR Code usage.
It was essential to provide the user with context about why a payment via Pix would be requested.
We would need to generate documentation to inform the sender of the document of the importance of notifying the recipient in advance that a symbolic payment would be requested for signature.
Understanding the payment process during the process could generate doubts and insecurity, even if the transaction itself were easy to complete.
Post-launch results
+3 thousand
Signatures with PIX
Este resultado foi ruim em relação à adoção pois considerou 5 meses
+95%
Success Rate
The success rate for attempts to sign up using Pix remained stable, considering it's a solution that requires more friction with the user.
6mil
Impressions on social media
The goal of gaining visibility in the national media and consolidating the brand as innovative was relatively achieved.
28
Participation in Articles
The news was reported in several major media outlets, including Valor Econômico, G1, and Exame.
Lessons learned by the team
We achieved the company's goal of gaining visibility in the national media and consolidating the brand as innovative, but we believe we did not meet all user objectives. After further evaluation, we understood that customers needed stronger authentication for certain operations, but PIX was not legally accepted, making a Digital Certificate signature the necessary option, which we were not addressing at that time.
Os testes de usabilidade foram essenciais para que a taxa de sucesso no processo fosse alta.
We learned to test quickly, evaluate the results, make adjustments, and test again.
Design was a powerful tool for the successful use of the solution.
Content design was fundamental in providing greater security for the user.
We would need to offer alternatives if the user did not want to or could not use Pix.
We would need to improve the sender's experience with the document to prevent risks associated with the use of PIX authentication.
