During my time at PayPal, I worked on a range of products exploring the social dimensions of payments. We observed that traditional payment flows treated transactions as isolated actions, often stripping away the social context that gives them meaning. We believed that payments should not exist as standalone steps, but be deeply integrated into the social spaces where conversation, intent, and shared experiences already exist. Through multiple explorations and experiments, several of these concepts matured into shipped features that are now live in the PayPal app.
The work shown here represents shipped outcomes of a much broader exploration effort across social, messaging, and payment surfaces, all of which are accessible within the PayPal app or website, while much of the broader exploration remains internal due to confidentiality.
Pool Money
Role: Lead Product Designer · Concept → Launch
Pool Money explores how groups can easily collect, manage, and spend money together for shared goals.
The project focused on making group payments transparent, flexible, and friction-light—from creating a pool and contributing funds to tracking activity and checking out as a group. The feature launched within the PayPal app, enabling people to organize money collaboratively without leaving their existing payment flow.
Emojis and Themes
Role: Lead Product Designer · Concept → Launch
Emojis and Themes explored how rich media could be meaningfully integrated into a single P2P payment without disrupting speed or clarity. I investigated multiple media types—static emojis, animated themes, and expressive illustrations—and evaluated where they should live within the send flow, how they scale across screens, and when they should appear to enhance emotion without overwhelming the transaction. The final design balances expressiveness and restraint, introducing media at moments of intent and confirmation while preserving a fast, familiar payment experience.
Quick Reply
Role: Lead Product Designer · Concept → Launch
Quick Reply enhances the receiving experience by enabling instant acknowledgment of P2P payments. Designed to reassure senders and reduce social friction, the feature surfaces contextual responses at moments of receipt, turning payments into closed, mutually acknowledged exchanges.
Messaging
Role: Lead Product Designer · Concept → Launch
Messaging embeds social interaction directly into the payment experience. The released design integrates quick replies and follow-up messaging within payment receipts, enabling acknowledgment and conversation without breaking transactional flow. Message-based P2P payments were also explored as a future direction, but were not included in the final launch.
PayPal Fundraiser
Role: Lead Product Designer · Concept → Launch
PayPal Fundraiser helps people raise money for causes through clear storytelling, transparent progress, and easy sharing. The experience supports the full lifecycle for both organizers and donors—from campaign creation and contribution to progress tracking and social sharing.