So I’ve taken a while to play with this new iteration. Apologies, long post incoming…
Summary: - I’m loving it! (As a quick test I went back to the old layout… It felt like reinstalling Windows 95. I shuddered and rapidly came back to the future).
Anyway, here’s the feedback requested
Absolutely. Everything is smooth and lovely. Performance wise, you wouldn’t notice that this is an early release.
It feels very natural. The animation is smooth and works wonderfully. I particularly like that tapping on a pot / account on the View All screen gives a nice little reverse animation.
A couple of quick thoughts on this though:
- There seems to be a bit of inconsistency in the card hierarchy. My connected credit card is at the same physical height as a pot, rather than the slightly higher height of the Monzo account. Instinctively this feels wrong to me - it feels like credit cards should be on the same level of hierarchy as the Monzo account.
- This would also solve a minor niggle - the inability to go from account to account except via Pots. I found myself trying to swipe left/right in two places - one at the top of the card to skip to the next account (i.e. my connected credit card, missing out pots), and one at the middle/bottom to go to the next pot.*
I found the pull down gesture odd for a couple of minutes but very quickly got used to it. I now love it. Big fan.
I do find myself tapping the card, though.
Sometimes (mostly when it’s on the main Monzo account card) I expect a tap to give me access to card controls (see account/card number, freeze card etc). Sometimes I expect it to have the same functionality as the pull down gesture (so see all accounts). And then I wondered if that would be a helpful home for a new screen to give headline details of the selected pot (what is currently in the feed for pots at the moment), or managing the selected open banking integration etc.
Then I wondered if you’re saving the ‘tap the card’ interaction as part of a secret plan?
Yes it’s easy to see all my info. I don’t have any goals, so can’t speak to that, but the amount on my credit card is clear and easy to understand.
One thing I would like, though, is a ‘net worth’ indicator - of all the connected accounts, how much I have / owe in total. And (without opening up old wounds about whether a pot is part of the current account), I think there needs to be a figure of the total money held under Monzo’s banking licence somewhere.
I’d also love to be able to reorder pots to avoid excess swiping - my pot order is annoying at the moment, my most used one is a few swipes too many away .
I’ve not noticed any weirdness or animation glitches.
I do, though, find myself wanting the drawer to snap at another (additional) point - below what I hope becomes the left to spend bar, but above the cards. That would be a lovely, clean, option (for me at least).
Mostly. I had one issue where I added money to a pot, but had to restart the app for it to show correctly. I haven’t done it since, so can’t see if it’s repeatable…
I don’t think so…
You didn’t ask for these, but here are some other thoughts after using the new iteration for a day:
- I have a bug where pots sometimes show in the horizontal list on their own - not behind the Monzo account. This happens when you tap a pot from the accounts screen - it animates back to the top of the screen but without the backing Monzo card.
- It feels odd to be that the screen flashes when swiping left/right to replace the transaction feed. It feels like the new contents should either slide with the card or elegantly fade in (or something).
- I’m sure this is on your radar for the future - but this new UI makes it even more evident (to me at least) that when swiping to a pot, you should see transactions for that pot, not a pot summary. (There’s place for that elsewhere - just not here, it feels inconsistent)
- I’m a lover of empty space and having breathing room in apps - but I wonder if there’s just a but too much of it in this iteration? For example, I find myself slightly at odds with others - I like for the account number to be easily accessible, but think it’s probably superfluous on the main screen at the moment. (That said, if it stays, can you add a bit of gloss and let you tap on it to copy the details, please? )
- I think you’ve said this isn’t the planned behaviour, but seeing the overdraft bar when I’m in credit seems redundant - left to spend bar please!
- With this new layout, I find myself a little frustrated at the Payments tab. I see to be expecting it to become context sensitive to whatever’s up top - so being able to transfer money in or out of a pot if that’s on the screen, or money in and or if it’s the personal account, (part) pay bill if it’s a credit card integration, (money in and out via open banking for other accounts in the future)…
- I need new pot images! Lots of the ones I have aren’t helpful when you just see the top stripe. Alternatively, the ability to include the name at the top in a complementary colour would be kinda useful. Or different stock images.
Hope this is all helpful. But I’m loving this and seeing big possibilities (including a committed pot that isn’t really actually a pot at all, instead being two swipeable cards to represent one main account: one for committed spend, one for discretionary. But I’m off topic, so will shush there!)
*I’m imagining a, hopefully not too distant, scenario where I can connect my Starling account to Monzo - I’d then have two main accounts with two sets of sub accounts - I don’t want to scroll through all of those before I get to my credit card.