Bold statement, right?
I talked a bit about this before the summer. But having thought about it, I’m convinced now’s the time to kill the payments and help tabs. And the Monzo Plus one, for good measure.
But why?
As Monzo evolves, it’s helpful to think about the app as three timeframes:
- What’s happening right now: that’s currently the home button (or the feed).
- What’s happened in the past: looking back, what did I spend on what? Where does my money go? That’s a bit all over the place, but it’s primarily in Summary
- What’s happening in the future: when, what and for how much are my upcoming payments? Will I have enough money? Am I spending to budget?
So if we think that’s the right mental model, that helps us work out how the app could be sensibly structured. Perhaps something like:
Zooming in on the tab bar:
These are in time order: so things in the past are on the left, things in the future are on the right.
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Analysis would look at trends and previous spend. Something like this - but better.
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Feed would be more or less as it is now (with tweaks for payments)
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Home would give immediate access to the pots / accounts screen you see when you pull down the card (with tweaks to show net worth)
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Schedule would show future stuff: budgets (if set), upcoming payments, potentially some simulated future balances allowing you model particular scenarios…
It’s a different mental model, but one that I think might stimulate some interesting thought.
So what would this mean for payments and help?
Payments: I strongly believe that having a payments tab is counterproductive, especially as we move to open banking and Monzo as a financial hub. Payments therefore become contextual, and need to be associated with an account - and the feed/card carousel is the place to do that. It could be done through a tab, I suppose, but it seems inelegant. In this example, I’ve used a floating button. But there are other ways: in Dozens, for example, payments are done from an icon under the card - a little like the pot transfer button.
As for maintaining payees, this could (should?) be done through the new Home button. More on that below. And future payments should be moved to the schedule tab.
Help: I think that it’s important as ever to have immediate access to help. Let’s not reopen the chat button debacle, but I think that a common place for help (be that self service or whatever) - but which understands that it’s a different level of hierarchy to transactional stuff - is important. So I’ve put it top right. It’d be in the same position on every single screen. It also helps free up the bottom tab panel.
What other assumptions have you made?
I’m glad you asked.
- Summary will be no longer - its functionality put in the right place either on the Analysis or Schedule tabs.
- The Home tab (or it could be called Accounts if that works better) would be where everything comes together. I’d bring back pulse to show net worth over time (probably longer than a month) taking into account of all connected accounts. I’d use this as the hub to manage Plus, and to manage payees. It would be a thing of beauty.
- The schedule tab might have three parts: 1) a feed-like structure showing upcoming direct debits, standing orders, recurring card payments… that you can tap on, add before-the-event notes to, change, etc, as well as short-cuts to create new SOs or cancel continuous payment authorities/direct debits; 2) sophisticated budgeting features (including the ability to run ‘what-if’ scenarios on changes in income/expenditure; 3) rules engine, for power users (when salary is received, send X to external savings, Y to pots; when Z direct debit is paid, add note of “#Electricity”…)
So, there it is. Kill the Payments tab (sorry @kavi), move the help to the top right, kill Summary, introduce some insanely powerful features. Jobs a good’un.
Might have a lie down. If anyone wants to have a go at mocking up the new tabs, feel free!
) at McDonalds but no more depth?