EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Over a period of four months, our team of six worked on a digital identity application ich.app developed by our project partner PSA Payment Services Austria.

Throughout the semester, we undertook various tasks, ranging from market research to identifying new use cases for the application and developing a marketing strategy targeted at Generation Z. Our goal was to determine how to make the application more appealing to them and to define which features, functions, and user experiences would be optimal for integrating the application into their daily lives. We divided this large goal into smaller, manageable tasks and by applying the design thinking method, we came up with implementable recommendations and suggestions.

Goal

The main goal of our project was to identify the needs and pain points of potential users of ich.app, based on which we would develop different features and strategies to integrate the application into the users’ daily life. Initially, the goal was to conduct interviews with a broad range of age groups. However, due to time constraints, the team decided to put the focus on students and our own generation. Because of ease of access and better understanding of this demographic, we focused on the generation Z with a belief that the insights gained from this age group would be valuable for our project partner and the features and strategies developed for them could be easily adapted for other age groups as well.

Methodology

The team approached the tasks using the design thinking method, whose main goal is to understand users and create a product or service based on their needs, pains, and preferences. This method includes five phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Thanks to these phases, we were able to organize our work effectively and maintain clearly defined and structured processes to achieve the best possible results. In the empathize phase, the key methods we used were surveys and qualitative interviews. In addition, throughout the course of the project, the team conducted secondary research by reading various online articles, reports, and journals about the digital identity market.

The workshops we attended during the project course, which focused on ideation, key insights, and prototyping, were also of great importance. The knowledge gained there proved to be a highly useful resource that helped us manage the tasks and achieve the final results.

Results

The results of the first phase of our project were more than thirty qualitative interviews conducted with the potential users, based on which we developed three personas and the key insights matrix. The matrix shows

In the second phase of the project, the team focused on the application marketing and developing prototypes for different features.

Our solution to spread awareness of the application was to integrate the ich.app into different events and occasions where users would get familiar with the app and, at the same time, they could use it for different coupons and benefits.

As an answer to the most emphasized pain point of the potential users - privacy and data usage, the team came up with the solution in a form of a data cockpit - simple and transparent pop-up feature at the beginning of the application. This data visualization would give an answer to the following question: Which partners of PSA and ich.app do have access to which data, when, and to what extent? This feature came from a valuable feedback from our interviewees and it would provide future app users transparency, safety, and control over their personal information and online activity. By developing this solution, the team responded to the biggest users’ pain point when thinking about digital identity application, as the relevance of data privacy and security is increasing steadily each day.

This marketing strategy and a developed feature proved to be the most relevant for the generation Z, aiming to integrate the ich.app into their daily lives.

Cooperation Partner

• PSA Payment Services

• Austria GmbH Handelskai 92, Gate 2, 1200 Vienna, Austria

• www.psa.at

Contact Person

• Peter Gehringer - peter.gehringer@psa.at

• Martina Preissecker - martina.preissecker@psa.at

Project Manager

• Diana Lauer, M.Sc.

• Florian Peter Nemetz, MSc, MSSc