Venmo Teen Account Content Testing

Summary

Before launching the Venmo Teen Account, the team wanted to make sure that the content is appropriate; that it isn’t “talking down” to teens, or “out-of-touch.” We also want to make sure that the language we are using is understandable, and the content as a whole is comprehendible.  

Team and Timeline

The team included myself, a senior UX Researcher, and product, content, and design partners.

From kickoff to the readout, this project took 3 weeks.

Research Objectives

• Evaluate if the content is comprehendible 

  • Are we using language that is understandable to teens? 

• Determine how teens interpret the “tone” of the content 

  • The goal for the content is to be "friendly, casual, simple and understandable," not trying to be "cool" or "corporate." 

Methodology

We tested the content through an Express Mission via Dscout (a short survey). We showed the participants one screen at a time with context, then asked them follow-up questions to determine comprehension and sentiment. We also gave them the opportunity to ask any questions about each screen through a short answer question.

For the comprehension questions, we provided 3-4 options that described the text, and asked them to choose the option that best describes the text (with one option being the most correct).

We recruited 100 participants age 13-17

Preparation

After collecting the screens to test, and building out the comprehension questions, we needed to decide on how participants would answer our questions on tone. We came up with a list of adjectives that teens would choose from to best describe the text. This list included adjectives like “fun,” “natural,” and “childish.”

Analysis

Since most of the questions were single select or multiple choice, analysis was fairly simple. For those questions where many participants chose one of the incorrect options that best described the text, I analyzed the short answer responses where participants asked questions about the content to determine what the issue was.

For the sentiment responses, dscout provided a graph of responses which I provided to the team in my readout.

Results

As a result of this study, the team could more confidently say that the tone of our content is being interpreted as we intended; "friendly, casual, simple and understandable," not "cool" or "corporate." 

We did see an issue where we used a more “jargon-y” word that teens had difficulty understanding. We also saw a few pieces of content where teens wanted additional details.

My recommendations included added this additional information for teens, and changing the “jargon-y” word to one more understandable to those new to finance.

Impact

The team adopted all of the recommendations, moving away from more “jargon-y” terms, and adding additional information. Now that we have completed research on content sentiment, there are plans to replicate this study in the future. Specifically for this product, we plans to refer to the list of adjectives when we talk about and research content sentiment in the future.