The challenge – Private payments in Germany
Redesign the digital private payment experience for young people in Germany in a world where cash is king and online banking is a pain.
The process – From zero to hype and back
In February 2015 the Cookies Labs GmbH was founded. In November 2015 I joined the team of then around 10 designers, developers and fintech experts. One could feel the start up spirit all over – goals and motivation were huge and the breakfast was high class.
Cookies was not the only peer-to-peer-payment app on the german market, but we aimed to be the best. The plan was to do so, by offering an outstanding, frictionless user experience, emotional design and branding. This was to be topped with additional services to the user apart from peer-to-peer-payments.
We used an iterative development process and finally launched in August 2016. By that time the Cookies app was already called one of the most hyped apps of the year.
Then the story took a twist. Internal issues deadlocked the launch. After only 72 days of being live the app was shut down.
What felt like a tragedy to us at first, turned out later to be the beginning of a new chapter. The Cookies team was acquired by Klarna to built the next p2p-payment app, which was then launched in August 2017 as Wavy app (read more on this project here).
The product – Fast and emotional
My responsibilities – Bug hunter and usability tester
Above all other features a banking app has to guarantee security in order to gain and keep the users trust. To offer a secure app, it has to be free of bugs and usability issues – so I was hired as the first quality assurance manager at Cookies. Together with the developers and designers I set up processes and performed the manual testing of the iOS, Android and web app. I also conducted a very detailed usability test as part of my bachelor thesis.
My highlights – Startup life and german banking
I learned a lot about the pros and cons of a startup, especially as I was part of the rise and fall of one of the most hyped payment apps in Germany. As a QA manager I was also in very frequent exchange with the developers and designers, who shared a lot of their knowledge with me. I got to know the different mindsets of both parties. Conducting the usability testing for Cookies, taught me a lot about the German mindset when it comes to banking and payments. And most important, right here at Cookies, I fell in love with creating outstanding digital user experience... and am ever since.
Curious for more?
Take a look at some articles from TechCrunch, Gründerszene, Computerbild and Golem.