INTRODUCTION

"Receipts," are something we don't think about much, yet it's something we as users deal with daily. Many of us have difficulty keeping track of both digital and traditional receipts. 80% of the U.S. population receives one to three receipts a day, 11% of which immediately get thrown away. With America’s retailers generating approximately 228.7 million pounds of receipt paper per year, this translates to 22.87 million pounds of paper that instantly becomes trash.

This research project seeks to understand :

• how receipt management systems work.
• The research will also look at whether paper receipts should be digitized at the financial institution level.
• This would benefit from centralized and standardized expense categorization and tracking while reducing environmental effects at the same time.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

• What are people's preferences for receipts? - (Paper, digital, or both)
• How do people track/store/organize receipts? - (Scan, email, in a file, or don’t store at all)
• What digital options do people prefer to track/store receipts? - (Applications)

HYPOTHESIS

• Receipt preference correlates with the kind of purchase people make
• People who store paper receipts find it difficult to manage their receipts

DESIGN PROCESS

OBSERVATIONS

To commence my research, I conducted contextual interviews and made observations to gain insight into the ways in which individuals manage and keep track of their receipts.

After analyzing my observations, I identified recurring patterns and organized my findings into visual representations such as flowcharts and thematic diagrams.

Themes :
‍

• Preference
• Method
• Application

INTERVIEWS & SURVEYS

Using inclusion-exclusion criteria, I carried out 3 interviews with the people handling their receipts to better understand the problems they face. In total, our team conducted more than 8 interviews. Afterwards, we surveyed the people and received more than 50 responses.

ANALYZING THE DATA

During each observation session, we took general field notes with a pen and paper and analyzed the data using the Contextual Analysis Framework. Later, we grouped similar notes and uncovered common themes

Furthermore, I transferred the draft to Miro and created our Affinity Map. I developed a flow chart structure of the common processes we observed during our observations after agreeing on emergent patterns amongst user behaviors.

KEY INSIGHTS FROM USER RESEARCH

We conducted 8 in-person interviews in total in order to empathize with users and understand their motivations and challenges. In response to conducting interviews, we wanted to know how people collect receipts and in what form they do so. I then drafted a survey that we posted on the CDM Participant Pool so that we could get a broad understanding from the community.

Our primary target audience was people who collect and store receipts in any form. We conducted observational interviews from both sellers' and consumers' perspectives. As a result of our interviews, we determined that consumers were easily accessible, so we decided to continue with our surveys and interviews. We targeted people aged 18-50.

The interviews and survey findings revealed the following key insights about people's preferences, methods for handling and storing receipts, and applications that they use to manage their receipts.
‍

Insight #1

Tracking paper receipts manually can be difficult due to faded information and time-consuming.

Insight #2

The people we interviewed mentioned that they collect receipts in physical form or both (email and print) and save them digitally. In some cases, they delete the mail, which is problematic.

Insight #3

Participants need a secure way to digitize their receipts and expenses to ensure accurate financial transactions.

Insight #4

Many participants expressed interest in switching to digital platforms but lack knowledge of which apps would be best for their needs. They also agreed that paper receipts should be replaced with secure electronic methods for storing and organizing receipts.

PERSONAS

We designed two personas that represent how users might use digital ways of storing receipts to help us understand the goals and frustrations they would experience when making decisions about receipt management.

JOURNEY MAP

To understand the emotional perspective of the users, I designed these journey maps to understand the needs and emotions of users at each individual interactions.

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

The results of our observations, interviews, and surveys helped to shape the design of a technology-based solution that helps users track and store their digital receipts digitally. Following are the design implications of the themes we identified:

• Providing the complete report of your expenses at the end of every month :
  ‍
  In our survey, 24 participants out of 37 said they needed a detailed report of their expenses every month. Having such a feature in their bank accounts would allow people to monitor their expenses statistically, so they can also see where they spend the most money. With this feature, users can also keep track of every item they purchase through digital receipts, enabling them to track their expenses for each item.
• Saving your receipts directly into the app :
  ‍
  A lot of times, people tend to collect paper receipts and they end up losing them, making it difficult for them to keep track of their past purchases. It is usually a hassle to exchange items if one loses a physical receipt or does not receive a digital receipt. Based on our survey statistics, 31 out of 37 respondents chose to save receipts directly in the application. Design implications could be incorporated into the bank application, so users could receive a digital receipt directly when they swipe their card. As this feature will be integrated directly into their bank application, this solution will allow people to go completely paperless and ensure security.
  
• Notifications of reimbursements/exchange/return of the products
  ‍
  Tracking due dates for items and for reimbursements of bills can be a time-consuming process. Most people tend to forget the dates during their hectic lives and end up paying an extra amount as a late fee. We asked the participants of our survey to choose features that they wish to see incorporated into the application. 22 out of 37 selected alert notifications for the due dates of reimbursement, exchange, and return. Based on our design implications there could be an extension that alerts and notifies the user much in advance of the actual due dates. This will give them a buffer time. Additionally, users can manage alerts according to their preferences within their account, giving them flexibility. Furthermore, the feature allows users to sort and filter into categories based on their preferences when incorporated.
  

LIMITATIONS & FUTURE WORK

• The samples in our study were limited to those living in the United States. It would have been preferable to gain insight from nations where paper receipts are still widely used.
• Our observations and interviews had time constraints and used a small sample size consisting of Eight people participated in the observation phase and the interview phase
• Most of our participants were consumers and because of limited time and access we did not come across any sellers.

Future work:
‍In my quest, I aim to find a practical and viable alternative to paper receipts by offering a comprehensive digital receipt system that ensures better receipt management and better management of transactions. We would also aim to gather matching sample sizes to compare in future studies,