Rishabh Singh
All work

Credit card servicing

Amazon Visa Pay Bill

Role
UX lead, end to end
Team
PM, me, 15 engineers
Timeline
March 2022, initial release October 2023, final release 2024
Impact
23% fewer late fees, 21% less attrition
The Select amount step in the Amazon app, with a custom amount field above three options, minimum payment due, statement balance, and current balance, and a Continue button.
01

Background

If this is the Amazon credit card why can't I access the account from Amazon

Amazon Visa customer, one star review, February 2021

The Amazon Visa is a Chase co-branded card and one of Amazon's most important payment products. Until 2023, customers who wanted to see a statement or pay a bill had to leave Amazon and do it on Chase's site, which most of them did not expect.

About half of the one and two star reviews on the card were about account management, and roughly one in five new cardholders picked up a late fee while they were still waiting for the physical card to arrive. Amazon's S-team decided to bring card management in-house. I led UX for three of those features, and Pay Bill was the first one out.

02

Project goals

Build a transparent and intuitive Pay Bill experience, so that fewer customers incur a late fee, fewer customers close the account because of one, and managing the card feels like the rest of Amazon. The year one targets were a 20% reduction in monthly late fee incidence and a 20% reduction in attrition.

We kicked off in March 2022 with a six month UX timeline and four sub-features in scope:

  • One-time payment. Pick an amount, pick a bank account, pay.
  • Manage bank accounts. Add, verify, remove, set a default.
  • Automatic payments. Enroll, change the amount, cancel.
  • Payment activity. See what is scheduled, pending, and posted.
03

Team and role

A Product Manager, me as the only designer, and 15 engineers. My responsibilities were:

  • Creating interaction design flows
  • High-fidelity mock ups
  • Prototyping
  • Partnering with UX Research on end-to-end usability testing
  • Organizing leadership reviews, both at Amazon and at Chase
  • Accessibility annotations
04

Design and outcomes

I worked the payment experience out in wireframes early, before there were requirements to design against. Amazon used them to write those requirements, and Chase used them to check their APIs and their legal and compliance position. Several things surfaced that way before any engineering started, and one of them cost us the best idea in the project.

Specifically, the slider experience we had proposed had to be axed from the initial release because of an unresolved L&C issue on the Chase side. The slider showed customers the estimated interest for whatever payment amount they selected, in real time, so they could see the cost of their choice as they made it instead of reading about interest in fine print. Usability participants called it something they'd never seen a credit card do. When it was cut, I redesigned the selection experience on a compressed timeline with no room for usability testing, using competitor patterns as a familiarity proxy.

The slider won an Amazon Inventor Award in 2023. Its implementation and a modified version of the design were later used in another project that launched and shipped.

Pay Bill's first release launched in October 2023 and the last of it in 2024. The numbers below are from an analysis run in September 2024, about eleven months after that first release.

2.3M One-time payments made

23% Fewer late fees, against a 20% goal

21% Less attrition, against a 20% goal

10% Fewer 1 and 2 star ratings

05

Experience

Select amount step in the Amazon app: a custom amount field above three options, minimum payment due, statement balance, and current balance, with a Continue button
Select amount. The first step of a one time payment: type a custom amount, or pick the minimum due, the statement balance, or the current balance. Launched October 2023.
The same Select amount step with a slider under the amount field, snapping between the minimum due, statement balance, and current balance, and an estimated interest charge of 13 dollars 65 cents below it
The slider concept. A slider that snaps to the same three amounts and shows the interest you would carry at each one. This is the idea behind the Amazon Inventor Award. It was cut from Pay Bill, and its implementation and a modified version of the design later shipped in another project.
Confirm payment sheet showing the amount selected, the payment date, the bank account, the 8 PM cutoff, and a Submit payment button
Confirm payment. The review step spells out the cutoff time, what the issuer will do next, and how to cancel, before there is anything to submit. Launched October 2023.
Payment submitted screen with a green check, the words thank you for your payment of 980 dollars, and a summary listing confirmation number, bank account, payment date, and status pending
Payment submitted. A confirmation number on screen, not only in email, because the payment posts days after it is made. Launched October 2023.
Automatic payments screen showing current status off, a three step explanation of how enrollment works, and a Set up automatic payments button
Automatic payments, entry. Current status first, then the three steps, so nobody enrolls without knowing what they are agreeing to. Launched October 2023.
Confirm autopay settings screen listing payment type, frequency, bank account, and payment date, with a link to the automatic payment agreement and a checked agreement box
Automatic payments, confirm. Every term restated in plain language, including what happens when the due date lands on a weekend. Launched October 2023.
Manage bank accounts screen listing three saved accounts, each with a default marker or a set as default action, and a remove account button
Manage bank accounts. Multiple accounts, one default, and a standing note that Amazon fetches this from the issuer and does not store it. Launched October 2023.
Add a bank account screen with a diagram of a paper check labelling which number is the routing number and which is the account number, above fields for both
Add an account. The check diagram is the whole design: routing and account numbers are the step people abandon, so the form shows where to find them. Launched October 2023.
Payment activity screen grouping payments by month, each row showing amount, date, and a status of pending or completed, with automatic payments marked
Payment activity. Pending and completed payments in one list, grouped by month, with automatic payments marked as such. Launched October 2023.
Payment detail screen for a 1500 dollar payment listing confirmation number, bank account, payment date, type, how it was submitted, and status, with a cancel payment action
Payment detail. Cancelling is reachable here for as long as the payment is still pending, which is the request the old flow had no answer for. Launched October 2023.
An annotated desktop layout of the pay bill flow, with labelled callouts marking reading order, ARIA radio button roles, checked and unchecked states, accessible names, and which links open in a new window
Accessibility annotations. Reading order, roles, names, and the expected screen reader output, handed to engineering with the mocks.
The Select amount step of the pay bill flow on amazon.com, with a VoiceOver caption reading: you are currently on a radio button, 2 of 3. To select this option, press Control-Option-Space.
The same screen, verified. The annotations checked against the built page with VoiceOver, which is the half of the job that makes the annotations worth writing. Launched October 2023.

This page shows only parts of the project. In-depth and sensitive details, and the end-to-end UX, can be covered in person or during the interview process.