One form, or one step at a time?
Setting up SplitPay as the main account holder.
See the shipped flow in the SplitPay case study →- The disagreement
A designer on my team believed fewer clicks meant a better experience, so they wanted the enrollment flow to be one form. I believed in bite-size steps: one decision per screen, so nobody gets overloaded.
- It got tense
We're friends, but on this project I was their lead. I worked hard to keep those two things separate.
- What I did
I didn't argue opinion against opinion. I brought data. On FastPay, an earlier project, our usability test showed people digest progressive disclosure more easily. That was close enough to this problem that I trusted it. I showed them, then wireframed the flow my way so they could see it, not just hear about it.
- What we didn't test
We never tested the form approach. Sometimes you know what will win because you've seen almost the same problem before. I still owed them the evidence, so I put the FastPay result in front of them.
- What happened
They tested my version themselves, and the feedback was good. They bought in. One decision per step shipped, and it's still the flow today.
- What I'd do differently
Once I'd shown the data and the draft, I could have said it plainly: this is what we need to do, and here's why. I got there. I just took longer than I needed to.
What I took from itBe ready to back up what you've learned with data. I ask my designers to do that, so I have to do it first. Stay open, but hold the line when you know what you know.