FINANCE
Client
PayPal is a US-based online payments handler, with 227 million customer accounts and 18,700 staff.
Program/Project
Re-design of Natural Language Call Steering (NLCS) module for UK market. Numerous “Business as Usual” (BAU) updates to PayPal’s UK IVR over an 18-month period.
My Role
User Interface Design Lead for PayPal UK. I worked very closely with Nuance’s PayPal US team, to ensure alignment of releases, and reported into weekly status calls with PayPal’s own US team. For day-to-day matters, I reported to PayPal’s EMEA team, based in Dublin, Ireland.
I then supported the two UK-based UI Design Leads who handled this account after me.
My Responsibilities
Comprehensive re-design of UK NLCS module, which improved caller transaction success by 13%.
Organized and facilitated a 2-day Usability Test of new features with PayPal UK customers. Reported findings to client Program Manager, then handled subsequent system refinements.
Managed UK English prompt audio recordings, including 3-day on-site session at PayPal’s recording studio in Cologne, Germany.
Implemented about 6 quarterly cycles of standard IVR BAU updates, typically to reflect changes to PayPal’s business operations.
Supported US team with design reviews of their own changes, and helped provide cover when colleagues were on vacation or sick leave.
UK English recognition testing of critical modules, to supplement functional tests by US and offshore QA teams.Challenges & Opportunities
PayPal needed US and UK systems - their two largest and most complex - to stay in sync. But their US and UK operations were not identical, so a large part of my role was to identify any differences, then design around these, to ensure as consistent a UX as possible - many experienced PayPal users operate internationally, especially eBay traders.
PayPal’s larger IVRs are complex. Cumulative sets of changes sometimes broke legacy logic in subtle ways. This was often hard to identify, as Nuance owned all Design documents, but PayPal handled all Development in-house. To help manage this risk, I developed a 1-sheet Visio mega-flow for the entire PayPal UK IVR design, then an equivalent based on PayPal’s latest Java application code, which their Tech Lead kindly shared. This highlighted several areas that had got out of sync over the years. These were fixed without too much pain.
Usability Tests and Interviews
with PayPal customers