App Evolution (new look Monzo app): Feedback Megathread 📣

[richycran (Rich)]

I’ve switched this on and back off a few times over the past few months. Given change is coming, I’m trying to live with it a bit more however there are a few things that I’m struggling with:

• The individual sections (Activity / Pots / Other accounts…) don’t feel very distinct as the overall look and feel is very light / white. There’s a distinct lack of colour to differentiate each (I’ve expanded my Pots into a list as the carousel doesn’t work for me). I have Plus and the green background of #legacyview provided more of a contrast to break up the screen.

• Navigation isn’t intuitive - swipe to go back has been mentioned previously and agree this is a big missing. I also find myself pressing on the section headers (e.g. ‘Activity’) and expecting something to happen. ‘See All’ doesn’t feel the right way to drill into detailed activity somehow.

• Metrics / spotlights have lost some impact as they’re no longer as visual. Left to spend is just a figure rather than the previous opinion-splitting colour-coded bar. It feels like there’s some context missing from each of these, which I know can be obtained by going into Trends, but I shouldn’t have to.

• With my Pots expanded in list form, plus Other Accounts, and Mortgage, it feels like a never-ending exercise in scrolling to navigate. Collapsibility or having a carousel of sections feels like it would streamline navigating somewhat.

Overall, I like this ‘dashboard’ approach and the direction it’s going but I really don’t feel it’s intuitive to use at the moment. Very much a case of living with it rather than enjoying it.

[Peter_G]

@richycran

. I also find myself pressing on the section headers (e.g. ‘Activity’) and expecting something to happen. ‘See All’ doesn’t feel the right way to drill into detailed activity somehow.

@richycran

With my Pots expanded in list form, plus Other Accounts, and Mortgage, it feels like a never-ending exercise in scrolling to navigate.

I do find myself wondering if a nice complement to the horizonal/vertical scroll views would just be a total view, with a tap to see the details on another screen.

For example, I’d much rather four entries under connected accounts (current accounts, everyday credit cards, loans (and 0pc credit cards) and mortgages) with a total against each but, when tapped, would take me into a breakdown screen with all the various accounts listed.

[richycran (Rich)]

@Peter_G

I do find myself wondering if a nice complement to the horizonal/vertical scroll views would just be a total view, with a tap to see the details on another screen.

I like this idea. Ultimately, I want to be able to view a list of all my pots and their balances so I can navigate to whichever one I need to and do what I need to do.

In this brave new world I am either faced with:

• never-ending swiping through the PotCarouselOfDoom (yes, having 18 pots is my own fault). I really don’t like this as the white pot names and totals over the blurred pot image is difficult to look at - can’t we just have black text BELOW the pot image?; or

• never-ending scrolling down the Overview page and my massive list of pots

The #legacyview was great as a slight pull down, or press of the Profile image, took you to a separate list which was nice and clear.

[richycran (Rich)]

Another thing that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable is the lack of any date context in the ‘Activity’ section.

I don’t know if a transaction is from yesterday or today and find myself always going to ‘See All’ to get this.

I’d like a clear differentiator to immediately see what transactions are from different dates.

[PaulUK]

The current design is similar to algbra in a lot of ways.

Their transaction overview does not give dates either, just, worse still, times of the transactions

[SlothNeil]

I’ve tried everything on Android but the little spotlight boxes at the top of the screen don’t appear. I’ve been in touch on the in app chat but no one can solve it?

[ned]

If you scroll down and tap “Edit layout”, then “Edit” next to Spotlight, is “Show in Home” toggled on?

[Orinoco]

I quite like the new layout. What I would really like is an option to merge the personal and business account to be visible at the same time. I’m sure there’s logistical reasons for them needing to be separate, as all the options underneath change, but switching between personal and business feels easier now so overall I like it.

[projectfortytwo (Chris)]

@Orinoco

merge the personal and business account

Personal account is your money. What’s in the business account isn’t yours until it leaves the account as salary, dividend, etc.

It irritates me that “Move money between accounts” includes business, as well as personal and joint. And that the adjustment for card contactless limits apply to personal and business accounts and can’t be set separately.

[TonyHoyle]

Just tried the latest one…

Left to spend is hidden in settings and turns up in box shoved on the top left - and is 1/3 of its correct value, due to including transactions from the next month - you can’t have a starting balance on the 1st and include all upcoming transactions until the 2nd of the next month as it’ll be full of duplicates… in my case £500 of repeating transactions that come out on the 1st, which throws the estimate off completely.

‘Activity’ is too small to be useful. 'Suggested actions needs to to die in a fire… total waste of space. Why would I ever want to set a profile picture in a banking app?

I like the design of the card with buttons at the top as the feed/manage toggle was never very obvious. That’s it though, the rest…

[Peter_G]

@TonyHoyle

'Suggested actions needs to to die in a fire… total waste of space. Why would I ever want to set a profile picture in a banking app?

What are these? I don’t think I’ve ever seen any suggested actions

[Sachaz (Sacha Zarb)]

Still ‘add money’, still bits stuck in pre pay days.

[Peter_G]

Agree.

Why not “move money” and a link to a new payments screen?

And then use the same text/screens on the pots screen?

[Sachaz (Sacha Zarb)]

Exactly something like that, I already pay my salary in, I don’t want to add money like I’m a 30 something on a trip round Europe, I want to easily pay the childminder or the window cleaner, or the football coach.

[Sachaz (Sacha Zarb)]

You still can’t make a payment quickly from the home page, no explanation why not

[Peter_G]

Only reason I can think of is because the bottom tabs are still a thing?

In the App Evolution AMA, I asked whether there were any plans to retire them:

AMA with App Evolution

Hello everyone I hope I’m not too late for questions, for I have a few! Are you now a ‘forever team’, or is this a fixed project that is scheduled to run until X date? Your team is called App Evolution (still loving the name) but the focus is on Overview, the new home screen. Is that going to the first of many parts of the app that you look at, or are you just sticking with home for now? An associated question: how deep into the app do you go? By way of example, Overview really expose…

Here’s what @leepethers said:

@leepethers

Well, we did test a version of overview without the tabs
In the spirit of ‘Evolution’ and continual learning personally I wouldn’t rule it out (but to be fair I wouldn’t rule most things out). I think in summary though part of the reason for keeping it for now is that maybe it is a bit too much of a step change. Not only that but overview would have to work a lot harder to essentially have everything in one place.

The current version of it can be overwhelming to some - especially those who just want to use Monzo as a spend card. But as we continue to evolve and focus on different areas, who knows. I quite liked the concepts we had without it

It does, though, seem to me that the new home screen is nearly ready to take over from the tabs with a few (small?) tweaks

[Peter_G]

The point isn’t the terminology, it’s more that having a shortcut to payments in rather than transfers generally is a hangover from the prepaid days.

[Peter_G]

What does your pinned account look like up top? Mine has this:

[davidwalton (Award Winning Hot Coral Analyst)]

@Peter_G

What does your pinned account look like up top?

For me, like this:

I don’t have ‘Add money’ ? Have I got the point or context wrong?

[Revels]

I have the same as David, add money is inside the vertical ellipses on the right