Overview
The advantages of a completed profile
Verified customer accounts allow PayPal to deliver personalized experiences. Each step toward profile completion gives customers better fraud protection while unlocking more app features.
We were initially tasked with helping customers recover accounts with invalid emails through secondary addresses. However, usability testing revealed a broader opportunity. Some participants showed an openness to complete other account-related tasks in the small window after completing their original task.
This insight led us to rethink the existing low-engagement "complete your profile" experience. I introduced the concept of a "profile checkup" inspired by medical checkups where patients proactively ensure everything's working properly.
My contribution
Content strategy
Product design
The team
1 content designer
1 product manager
1 product designer
1 UX researcher
2 legal partners
Year
2024
Process
Leading with strategic principles
I used insights from our initial usability testing to develop a set of content principles that guided the final design.
Timing matters
Testing participants ignored requests that appeared before or during their main task. My solution capitalizes on the momentum after task completion, when users are most open to next steps.
Keep things simple with progressive disclosure
Focusing each screen of the checkup on one action at a time maintains clarity and prevents users from feeling overwhelmed.
Make it rewarding
Users stay engaged when the experience feels approachable and acknowledges quick wins on the way toward completion.
Outcomes and reflection
Our second usability test revealed strong user adoption of the profile checkup flow, with 82% of participants successfully updating their email addresses and advancing through the profile completion process. This validated the flow's effectiveness in reducing hard bounces while maintaining customer engagement throughout the profile completion process.
The progressive disclosure approach reinforced my belief that successful onboarding is about reducing cognitive load at every step. I learned to start with email verification as a quick win, then gradually introduce additional profile tasks. This created psychological momentum where each completed step made the next feel manageable.