Anyone between 20-40 years old, who’s financially active/ aware and somewhat tech-oriented who goes out with more than one person or in a group at least once every week have one thing in common: the stress about splitting the bill. People usually stress or take a long period of time splitting the bill when receiving it after; eating out, going to parties, using a driver service, planning expenses ahead of time or any activity that you could think of that requires a payment when out with more than one person.

Currently users have to track their bills by writing them down, one by one, or memorising them in their heads, sometimes even leading to paying incorrectly. By efficiently dividing the information received from the bill, as well as the amount and number of recipients, we can give users the time and messy moments of calculating and knowing who needs to pay what and when back, making this uncomfortable situation, a problem of the past.

All users we interviewed had this problem in common, they never thought ahead when going out, how they would’ve needed to divide their bill (unless of course they were just inviting and paying for all) and the moment they received it repeatedly represented; time wasted, stress, as well as unconformity.

In the situation of planning an event ahead of time, less mistakes were made, however it still took some time to calculate the expenses within the group. Even when doing so it was also hard to input or share the ‘expense chart’ with the rest of the group. In the case of adding expenses, or modifying something, was also too complicated unless a recipient in charge did all the work for the rest of the group, leading to miscalculations or inaccuracy.

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Research Insights & User Pain Points

We were able to do over 10 interviews which went over the following questions:

How often do you make plans with groups?
How often do you pay when you're in a group?
How easy is it for each individual in your group to know exactly how much to pay?
When (moment) do you split the bill?
Why do you split a bill?
Do you divide each bill at the moment you pay or does someone offer to pay for all so that then you just transfer the money to this person?
Tell me about a time you had to split a bill/multiple bills in one night? What was that experience like?
Is paying someone back for a favour something that you would easily forget?
If you could split the bill in 2 steps, would you use it?
Is planning ahead (budgeting) easier when it comes to dividing a bill?

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We identify these main 3 pain points:

When in groups (more than 3) it’s stressful to know exactly who needs to pay what.
When someone pays for you, you tend to forget how much you owe and to whom.
Planning ahead isn’t as straightforward if plans change within the group.

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Solution Explanation

Our proposed solution is to build a free mobile-first web app that provides an easy to use bill splitting experience, which simplifies what the user needs to pay and to whom they need to pay after receiving one or multiple bills.

Based on user pain points collected from our initial research, we prioritised the features we want to deliver based on the following parameters:

Must-haves

Fast onboarding
Inputting the bill details
Creating expense group
Automated splitting (equal division or percentages)
Manual splitting
Overview of the amounts from the bill uploaded
Send the request for payment

Good-to-have

Take a picture of the bill (to upload)
Adjusting balance due according to payments

Future backlog

Click directly on your choice of payment (money transfer)
Push notifications or email notification until to remind you of the payment until you’ve done
Graphic panel that I can see what people owe me or what I need to pay.

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Lofi & Hifi Mockups

Iterative Design Learnings

Chaski | 25 | Grad Student at NYU

Pre-testing Questions

1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1=not at all confident, 5=very confident), how would you rate your level of confidence in using your mobile phone for splitting your bill? 2‍

2. How often do you use your phone to track, split, or revise your bill? Not often, I’ve never used an app

When was the last time you engaged in this task? Never, but I am confident in my tech skills
What tools do you use, if any, to help with this task? Calculator
Please describe your experience with this tool. -

3. Which of the following indicates how much you know about splitting your bill with a technological tool?

[Option 1:] I don’t know anything about that.
[Option 2:] I know a little, but I could learn more
[Option 3:] I am an expert.

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Flow 1: Adding a Friend

Insights

Is the email or number required?
Flow was easy to understand as it is similar to any other social app

Pain Points

Finding email or phone and copy pasting into the app
So everyone has to be signed up prior to the bill? What if someone makes a bill already and wants to add to a group or bill later?

Opportunities

Can I send them an invite through text message or other app rather than typing their email or phone number is extra work

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Flow 2: Creating an Activity + Split Bill Evenly

Insights

intuitive

Pain Points

Removing friends from group

Opportunities

Maybe be able to put type of bill prior to making it? Food, ride share, lodging, etc.
Is this a confirmation or send button?

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Flow 3: Splitting Bills Individually

Insights

I like how you can pick who out of the group is supposed to pay but can’t we do this with the bill like how we do with an activity?

Pain Points

How do we split tax and tip? People do it differently

Opportunities

What if someone wanted to split an item?

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Sam | 27 | Developer at Disney

Pre-testing Questions

1. On a scale of 1 to 5 (1=not at all confident, 5=very confident), how would you rate your level of confidence in using your mobile phone for splitting your bill? 4‍

2. How often do you use your phone to track, split, or revise your bill? Often like a few times per month

When was the last time you engaged in this task? Last week for dinner
What tools do you use, if any, to help with this task? Tab and Splitwise
Please describe your experience with this tool. Tab is only for food/drink bills and tips/tax is required. I also can’t edit my bill and sometimes when I take a picture it is incorrect. I have also used Splitwise but everyone needs an account to do bills, and there are a lot of features which can be helpful but overwhelming at first.

3. Which of the following indicates how much you know about splitting your bill with a technological tool?

[Option 1:] I don’t know anything about that.
[Option 2:] I know a little, but I could learn more
[Option 3:] I am an expert.

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Flow 1: Adding a Friend

Insights

Pain Points

Creating groups as we’re creating the bill i think makes more sense for me

Opportunities

Sending invite through linkk

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Flow 2: Creating an Activity + Split Bill Evenly

Insights

In Tab, you can ‘join’ a bill

Pain Points

Group makes sense, but what if everyone is not paying on every bill in the activity?

Opportunities

Being able to edit the bill after a picture is taken

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Flow 3: Splitting Bills Individually

Insights

Pain Points

Maybe don’t have split evenly and by person so large on the screen bc it seems like you can easily switch it

Opportunities

More ways to split the bill and be customized

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Implementation Details

Technical implementation

‍Where is it hosted? Vercel‍
What is your tech stack? NextJS / Express‍
High level journey of a request User actions are processed through a database. Frontend takes in all information from the database to load a static page.

Technical challenges

‍What was the hardest part of development? Implementing local persistence‍
Does your app have any scaling issues? Not to my knowledge‍
What are some key takeaways? You can create the functionality of the app and easily replace code to fit in a backend

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Future Steps

At the moment we won’t be pursuing this project in the future, although we might change our minds.

Learnings

Product Manager Learnings:

Pedro Antonio Arias

I had the wonderful opportunity to collaborate with a cross-functional team of software engineers and designers thanks to COLAB. We gathered user feedback at each stage of the process to iterate on our product, prioritized and de-scoped items as necessary. In many respects, it was modelled after the product pod of a genuine firm.

I learned:

Making decisions: Talk them out loud as you consider your options.
Making the most of your time: Focus on the tasks that will benefit your team the most.
When deciding what to prioritise, consider the vast majority of your clients, user review
Determine the true worth of your product by measuring its usefulness.
To form a team, give your teammates responsibility and encourage cooperation.
Reiterating the long-term objective and vision can help you keep things simple.

Designer Learnings:

Natalie Fajardo

Iteration!
Getting more comfortable talking about the WHY for my designs
Understanding the customer’s pain points better from user research and implementing it into my wireframes
Understand timing with the developers and working with them through the start-to-end process

Designer Learnings:

Jo Sturdivant

Adapting to an Established Team: Joining the team in week 6 of 8 was challenging, as I had to quickly adapt to existing workflows, dynamics, and goals. This mirrors real-world situations where you often integrate into teams mid-project, and flexibility is essential.
Work-Blocking for Efficiency: With only two weeks to complete the project, I learned the importance of a structured work-blocking system. This approach allowed me to manage my time effectively and meet deadlines under pressure.
Making Data-Driven Design Decisions: Unlike my past projects, I had to rely on research conducted by others. This was a valuable experience in using pre-existing data to guide design decisions, helping me focus on the core insights without starting from scratch.

Developer Learnings:

Zach Shearer

Working with time conflictions is a lot harder than I initially thought.
Having a team filled with unique skill sets is kind of awesome.
Hold one another accountable and cooperate thoroughly
Compare time restrictions to scope and determine what a perfect scope would be.

Developer Learnings:

Vanady Beard

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As the back-end developer, I learned how important it is to create efficient and reliable systems that support the entire application. This experience also taught me the importance of optimising the database and ensuring the backend is scalable and easy to maintain.

Developer Learnings:

Stephen Asiedu

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As a back-end developer, I've come to understand the importance of being familiar with various database systems and modules. This knowledge enables me to build diverse applications and maintain versatility in my work. I've also learned that the responsibility for making the right choices rests on my shoulders, guided by my best judgement.

Developer Learnings:

Kehinde (Jacob) Metibemu

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Decision
Priority, what to work on, why it’s important
Converting design to code
Time restrictions.

Developer Learnings:

Maurquise Williams

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Process of Creating an MVP: Developing a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) taught me how to focus on delivering core functionalities balancing between essential features and avoiding scope creep.
Collaboration in a Real-World Tech Setting: This experience taught me how to collaborate efficiently in a fast-paced tech environment, keeping the team aligned and productive, even while working remotely across time zones.
Sharpening Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills: This experience honed my ability to think critically and solve problems efficiently. By tackling challenges and finding quick solutions, I sharpened my decision-making and troubleshooting skills in a dynamic, real-world setting.

Developer Learnings:

Jeremiah Williams

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All in all this experience was very awesome I learned that in coding with others being transparent is key

Developers Learnings:

Justin Farley

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I learned how important communication is when working with a team. Communication provides understanding, advice, ideas, and much more. While working with the product team, I’ve found that communication keeps everything flowing smoothly. Working with a team also showed me that every member brings something different to the table and we all have to work together in order to align and meet our end goal.

Full Team Learning

We had certain difficulties mainly due to our own time restraints, as well as trying to have more differentiating functionalities ready for the MVP.
However, we talked by communicating at least once through the various channels we used and summarising the functionalities to the most important ones for the MVP.