Partner Pay Android App


As part of the user experience team at Mastercard, I frequently perform user research. Many of the products that we concept/usability test tend to be part of a bank website or bank mobile app. We created a fake bank brand, called Partner Bank, that we would sometimes use in our prototypes for testing. We use the Partner Bank brand because consumers have opinions and emotions regarding real bank brands (such as Citibank or Chase) that can bias the test results.

For testing purposes and proof of concept research, we needed a Partner Bank branded Android app called Partner Pay. We began the Partner Pay Android app project by doing research on other bank mobile apps and payment apps to determine the features and experiences common amongst them. We then brainstormed the flow and interface for the Partner Pay Android App using whiteboarding and wireframing (in Sketch):

Partner Pay Brainstorming Whiteboard Partner Pay Brainstorming Whiteboard

Once we determined the user journeys of the Partner Pay Android App and created wireframes of several screens, we developed the visual design using Sketch for the app, relying on Google’s Material Design patterns for design direction:

Partner Pay Visual Design in Sketch Partner Pay Visual Design in Sketch Partner Pay Visual Design in Sketch

I then took our visual design in Sketch and used Android Studio and the Java programming language to build the Partner Pay high-fidelity prototype. The Partner Pay high-fidelity prototype is an actual native Android application that runs on Android phones and tablets. I built the prototype as a native Android application because for our user testing, we needed to simulate biometric authentication and a contactless payment which is only possible with a native Android app. The Partner Pay prototype uses an Android phone’s NFC hardware to actually detect and communicate with NFC enabled payment terminals. It also uses an Android phone’s biometric fingerprint reader to authenticate users.

Partner Pay Android App Card Dashboard Partner Pay Android App Navigation Partner Pay Android App NFC Payment

Download and install a version of the Partner Pay Android app high-fidelity prototype (APK file):

Download App APK