Available for Work

Transforming a Niche Utility Into a High-Usage Feature That Grew Revenue by 3%

Web App

Background

Cash flow is one of the most critical needs for small business owners and independent workers. While WooPayments allowed next-business-day transfers by default, many merchants needed access to their earnings immediately — especially in high-volume moments. The team had previously introduced Instant Deposits as a manual feature, but adoption lagged due to low visibility and user friction.

Objective

Design and launch a payout experience that gives merchants more control and clarity over their funds—with Instant Deposits as the centerpiece.

My Role

As product designer, I led user research and product definition across three areas:

  • Payout speed: Merchants wanted on-demand access to funds—even if it meant paying a fee.

  • Eligibility confusion: Many didn’t understand why Instant Deposits wasn’t available to them.

  • Unclear schedules: Payout timelines didn’t reflect bank holidays, reserve periods, or negative balances.

Approach

I partnered closely with engineering, compliance, and risk teams to uncover constraints around settlement windows, KYC, and fraud triggers. 

My work included:

  • Mapping out the end-to-end payout flow to identify where delays occurred.

  • Designing a seamless opt-in flow that communicated fees transparently.

  • Prototyping multiple withdrawal states, balancing urgency with trust.

  • Conducting usability testing with 12 active users to refine edge cases.

  • Integrating dynamic risk scoring logic visually into the UI, helping users understand when and why instant deposits might be unavailable.

Solution

We delivered a fully redesigned payout experience across three iterations.

  1. Manual Deposits MVP (WooPayments 5.0)

    • Introduced opt-in control for merchants to manually trigger deposits.Clearer UI for disabling automatic deposits and initiating transfers.Simplified modal interactions and inline error states for clarity.

  2. Instant Deposits v1 (WooPayments 5.6)

    • Enabled merchants to request real-time deposits to eligible bank accounts.Displayed instant deposit availability directly in the balances card.Introduced in-context tooltips explaining payout delays and thresholds.

  3. Scaling Instant Deposits (WooPayments 6.9)

    • Replaced transactional breakdowns with payout-level receipts for performance and transparency.Streamlined the overview UI to focus on what merchants care about: amount, method, and timing.Added eligibility onboarding states and celebratory feedback on success.

Results

In the first 3 months post-launch

  • $4.8M+ processed via Instant Deposits

  • 30% adoption rate among eligible merchants

  • 2–3 days saved per payout for merchants opting in

Impact

This work transformed payouts from a passive wait-and-see process to a transparent, user-controlled experience. It significantly grew division revenue by 3%, significantly improved merchant satisfaction, and laid the groundwork for more advanced financial tooling.