Squared Eye » Notebook » Interface Adjustments for Better Business

The Pirate

PayPal is a popular if not common gateway for many of my client’s needs. If they haven’t got the budget for a customized integration of a payment gateway they will often fall on PayPal as the traditional player for that market share. The problem for these clients of mine and many others like them is described in a statement I often hear:

Figure 1. A common PayPal Interface

I’d like to use PayPal, but I don’t want my customers to have to log in to PayPal to be able to purchase my product. What other solutions are out there?

PayPal has inadvertently created the illusion that you must be registered in order to use their services. This was once true, but is no longer the case. Yet the perception sticks. I surmise that it remains because PayPal has done very little to affect one of their default interfaces for payment, Figure 1.

Okay, perhaps PayPal isn’t quite a pirate because of this interface, but I suggest that the interface they are using here is so visually weighted toward the PayPal registration option that the other payment option is rendered visually hidden. The ratio of text concerned with PayPal registration doesn’t help much either. It is so focused on PayPal that the credit card payment option must be something that the user literally stumbles over if they decide, against all odds, to read the entirety of the page. The effect of this, is that it appears that PayPal does not trust me as the consumer to make the decision I want to make. They’ve moved from simple motivation or suggestion into manipulation. Whether PayPal realizes that they are manipulating might be in question, but a poorly designed and uncontrolled interface may end up doing just that.

The question must be asked at this point whether it is good business for PayPal to offer alternatives to the their registration/login method. It is good for PayPal as long as online buying continues to gain credibility, and businesses like PayPal need to secure trust from their customers in order to gain market share from both vendor and buyer.

Figure 2. A renewed PayPal interface

If PayPal plans on doing so by heavy handedly levying their customers into a proprietary PayPal only system, I think they’ll find they’ve been beet by the competition of groups like Google Checkout, Magento, Big Cartel, Foxy Cart or shopify, all of which provide a more fluid checkout. If PayPal wants to give their users an opportunity to explore the benefits of registering with them, its clear that they’ll need to entice rather than confuse new customers into a relationship. There are enough businesses offering these guided choices to consumers that PayPal and businesses like them will need to reconsider their methods in the near future.

The presentation of choice needn’t be a whole new interface, but simply utilizing the presentation and style choices that are already available, delivered in a modified fashion, can produce the effect they’ll need to give their customers a more enticing and less confusing sale. I’ve concocted my own version of how that might work out visually, while trying to remain loyal to the current PayPal style. See Figure 2.

PayPal currently offers a few different alternatives in their interfaces, but not so many, or communicated so well that its changed the perception of who they are and what they offer. As you can see from example (Figure 2), the changes I’m suggesting are minor, while the effect is major. An interface can make a massive difference in how a company is understood, used, and trusted – or not.

As Squared Eye grows, I really want to be in a position to encourage our clients and the field in general toward a more and more user focused relationship with the web. From my perspective, this is a great opportunity for consumers to have a voice and some sway again, in a market that has been driven more by marketers than those marketed to. How about it PayPal? Want us to redesign for you?!