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Pictures from the BISP/Ehsaas corona relief program have been floating around and this one particularly caught my eye. I think it's a good time to plug in learnings on receipt design for the beneficiary persona from a study we did at @ideatepk on the BISP cash withdrawal process.
Even without any of it legible, you can tell that it's cluttered, there's too much information, almost 50% of the space is taken up by logos, and that's a lot of paper.
Our engagement with the beneficiaries showed that there's only one thing on the receipt that they care about: the total amount they receive.
That's the only valuable piece of information for them.
That's the only valuable piece of information for them.
Receipts give them sense of authenticity because they can tally the amount they receive with what is mentioned on the piece of paper that comes out of the machine. A machine that to them is linked directly to the govt. Hence anything coming out of it is from the government.
They already associate the receipt with authority and credibility. So while the ehsaas logo is essential, it certainly does not need to take up all of that space. Neither does the Konnect logo.
What does need to take up more space is the mentioned amount that's being handed to the beneficiary.
That is what matters the most to the women.
That is what matters the most to the women.
A majority of these women have low literacy. And while they have learned to comprehend numbers, their comprehension is different from those of us who have learned arithmetic skills through formal schooling.
This means a couple of things, the two most important ones are:
1. They often need nudges to know whether to read a figure from left to right or from right to left.
2. The comma, like in '5,000', sometimes confuses them.
1. They often need nudges to know whether to read a figure from left to right or from right to left.
2. The comma, like in '5,000', sometimes confuses them.
And because they cannot read, they are also confused if there are multiple figures with the same visual weight on the receipt because they cannot tell which one should correspond to the amount they receive.
This is also backed by CGAP's design guide on communicating with BISP recipients which states that they 'may not be able to find numbers if they are surrounded by other text'. And to make the number as big and bold as possible.
Another reason for making the amount the most visible item on the receipt is that these are thermal paper receipts. That means that the information on them fades in a few days.
A heavier font will retain the amount information for longer.
A heavier font will retain the amount information for longer.
If I had a clearer picture of the receipt so I could see all the information on it, I'd have done a quick redesign. But for now, this is a prototype we made for the receipts in our study after several rounds of testing.
