WhatSub

Designed a MVP subscription management app to help users manage their finances

Role

– UX/UI Designer
– UX Researcher

Timeline

– 05/01/2025 – 05/29/2025

Tools

– Figma/FigJam
– Miro
– Google Forms
– Zoom

Subscription-based services are a luxury that a lot of people across the world enjoy. Whether it be finding games to play on cloud services or binge-watching your favorite shows, these services are often used to help people relax or get something beneficial in the long run. However, I often found myself in a problem that many others do with these services; sometimes the interest fades and so does our memory of them. Because of this, we all suffer the consequences via buildup of financial losses which leads to panic. WhatSub is an application designed to help users better manage their finances and subscriptions so that they won’t have to experience those kinds of feelings ever again.

People find it difficult to manage their subscriptions without automation.

The main problems that users (including me) tend to face come from a lack of reminders/notifications as well as dark patterns hidden in the cancellation process. Users tend to especially dislike the user of dark patterns. It pains me to go through 5 million pages just to reach a “are you sure” at the end which is a problem I intend to solve within this app. What a lot of users also tend to forget about is that utilities that they pay for can also could also count as subscriptions.

The company is also looking to expand into the German market, which makes the research a lot more interesting. The main problem with this company that German users face is privacy and security regarding their banking information. Since most subscription management services require linking a bank account, this means that I would need to come up with other options for these users.

Create a mobile app to give users more accessibility

I designed an MVP mobile app that will allow users to manually or automatically (based on preference) add their subscriptions by linking their bank accounts, credit cards, or email, including all functionality for managing subscriptions all in one seamless app.

So Let’s Get Started!

When I first took a look at the problem, I thought that the main issue stemmed from users not getting enough notifications/reminders regarding their subscriptions. While this was one of the many issues, secondary research and user surveys told me it was more complex than that. Using the results from this research, I was able to identify these key points and gather valuable insights.

There is a lack of automation in subscription management apps

To understand how WhatSub could stand out from the competition, I decided to conduct a competitive analysis of the leading subscription management platforms out there. From my research, I was able to conclude that there was a lack of automation in adding subscriptions and pausing/cancelling subscriptions. This was the main target I needed to focus on.

Now just because we have the American market in mind, doesn’t mean that we can leave out the German market. If we take a look at this analysis, we can see that most of these apps require linking a bank account or manually adding their subscriptions into the app. This isn’t efficient so we would also need to find a way to automate without having to breach security.

With my key insights and secondary research out, I now understood the 3 main questions I would need to answer in order to ensure maximum ease for our users:

1) How might we allow users to access all their subscriptions so that they can manage them easily and efficiently?
2) How might we allow users get clear communication from subscription services so that they are notified about important information?
3) How might we guarantee privacy and security so that we can help the company expand into the German market?

Now that I know what issues need to be resolved, I have decided to implement the following functions during this project:

1) Automatically adding subscriptions linking bank accounts, emails, or credit cards. (Users may choose to also manually add subscriptions.)
2) Cancelling/pausing subscriptions without being redirected to another page.
3) Seeing subscription details and being able to edit them from the app.
4) Viewing a calendar with payment reminders and being able to sync it with personal calendars.

Before I start crazily putting designs together, I need to have a structure for how users will interact with the app. To do this, I decided to put together some user flows that will illustrate the different paths they will take. The tasks I have put together are adding user subscriptions and managing subscriptions.

With all this preparation complete, I was ready to begin the design phase of my MVP app. To initiate this process, I created some low fidelity designs on Figma for the different features used in the app.

Onboarding

Subscription Dashboard

Managing Subscriptions

Notifications Calendar

Create a brand that shows organization and a sense of trustworthiness while promoting caring, friendly, and casual attitudes.

Now we can’t just push out an app with a bland structure like that. We have to make it pretty and match with the theme we’re trying to go for. WhatSub was named to feel like a friend coming over to help you organize your things. How would you greet a friend? You would say, “What’s up?” To emphasize this feeling, I decided to incorporate a nice light blue with green as well to show a nice and cool atmosphere, organizing your things.

In order to get critical feedback on these designs, I went out and conducted 3 user tests, which involved the following tasks:

1. Complete the onboarding
2. Add subscriptions (based on user preference)
3. Check subscription service 1 3a. Look through all the details
4. Cancel your subscription
5. View your calendar for payment updates

The users were able to 100% complete all the tasks. However, I found that there were some functions that needed to be added and improved.

What needed to be improved?

Based on the feedback provided by the user tests, the following changes were made.

Subscription Details Page
3/3 users wanted to see all the detail tabs opened up in the “subscription details” page instead of having to open them separately.

Subscription Details Page
2/3 users wanted to be able to add further subscriptions via the same way that they did during the onboarding.

Onboarding

Subscription Management

Notifications/Calendar

With these final prototypes, I sought out some users and conducted 3 usability tests once again. Overall, the prototypes were a resounding success and users had no trouble overall with accomplishing all their tasks.

Say hello to your best friend, WhatSub: a subscription management application that will help users manage their subscriptions through automation and all in one simple place.

Enjoying subscriptions is a luxury to many people, and thus being able to optimally manage them is a huge financial stress. It’s essential for users to be able to have a friendly experience dealing with this rather than having to go through the panic.
While I did do research about subscription management apps overall, receiving background information as well as what the company values are provided me with a proper design map and how I should go about designing the project overall.
Adding another market (in this case, the German market) made this research a lot more challenging and opened my thoughts to broader ranges. I was now adding more diversity to my user base which was more fun and challenging than I thought it would be.

If WhatSub were to no longer be a dream app, I would focus on implementing these new functions:

– Add saving tips/deals to help users save money
– Implement AI tools to provide users with better help/recommendations for users
- – Could also be implemented with the saving tips

Background

The Problem

The Solution

Understanding Our Users

So Who's the Competition?

How Might We?

Meet Our User!

Key Functions

Let's Get Designing!

Drafting Early Designs

Visual Design

Is the Design Working?

Iterated Prototypes

Final High Fidelity Prototypes

Now Let's Try That Again

Final MVP Design

What Did I Learn?

What's Next?