PayPal
Account Quality Notifications Framework
Proactively engaging users through contextual touchpoints to update invalid acount information, reducing downstream friction.
Delivering a mobile-first experience with extensive cross functional and stakeholder alignment across teams.
Inaccurate personal information leads to friction.
Invalid, out of date, and unconfirmed personal information such as Email, Phone Number, and Addresses lead to different types of friction downstream such as limitations, log-in friction, and core task friction.
<20M
Users with low account quality
~250M
Cost savings + potential revenue
How do we help customers use PayPal products seamlessly, without interruption or account limitations?
SOLUTION
Build a native end-to-end experience for users to proactively improve their account quality.
MY ROLE
I led design, defined interaction patterns, messaging strategies, and escalation logic across the notification framework. I collaborated with product, engineering, and content design to ensure consistency and scalability across multiple use cases and touchpoints.
I collaborated with Product & Engineering to define and prioritize quality triggers by user impact.
Our current solutions were disjointed, unpersonalized, and detached with how customers used PayPal.
HOME 0-90 DAYS
PROFILE POST-90 DAYS
I completed a competitive analysis to identify a number of key insights:
Multi-channel notifications to keep users informed and engaged.
Different use cases require different patterns to support user goals.
Clear, tangible value to help drive engagement.
COINBASE
VENMO
POPL
SNAPCHAT
I mapped out user journeys to identify key touchpoints impacted by account-quality triggers.
I combined established internal and external messaging patterns to build a flow for testing.
PUSH NOTIFICATION
HOME BANNER
PRODUCT BANNER
In partnership with Research, we discovered three key findings:
Timing Matters
Users ignore info requests when they are focused on completing a task.sda
Deadline clarifies urgency
Without deadlines, the urgency of critical info requests can be unclear
Say it loud & clear
Users lack urgency with passive notifications.
RESEARCH FINDING 1
Timing Matters
Users ignore info requests when they are focused on completing a task.
BEFORE
(PRE-TASK BANNER)
AFTER
(POST-TASK NOTIFICATION)
RESEARCH FINDING 2
Deadline clarifies urgency
Without deadlines, the urgency of critical info requests can be unclear.
BEFORE
(GENERIC)
AFTER
(CLEAR & URGENT)
RESEARCH FINDING 3
Say it loud & clear
Users lack urgency with passive notifications.
SMS
HOME BANNER
PRE-TASK INTERRUPTION
Notification Framework Example
To prepare users for upcoming limitations, urgency is gradually increased across internal and external messages using clearer patterns and more direct content.
90 DAYS OUT
30 DAYS OUT
1 WEEK OUT
POST LIMITATION
With different success states across the experience how do we create a more scalable approach?
TOAST
HALF SHEET
FULL PAGE
SOLUTION
Scalable, Independent approach
Half-sheets catch users post-task without disrupting flow, plus embedded actions mean fewer taps.
BEFORE
(EXPERIENCE-DEPENDENT)
AFTER
(INDEPENDENT & SCALABLE)
Est. Business Impact
Improving account quality, reducing friction, and increasing engagement.
↑50%
in overall account quality for all users
↓24%
in CS calls related to account quality friction
↑24%
in overall engagement in PayPal products
~250M
in cost savings + potential revenue
Challenges and key lessons learned
Here's an overview of what challenged me the most and what I’d do differently next time.
Challenges
One of the biggest challenges was managing constant shifts in priorities and minimal product support, all while coordinating across stakeholders and navigating a complex and changing approval process.
Learnings
This taught me to align early, define clear checkpoints, and not hesitate to escalate when support or direction was missing.
© Ahmed Saber 2025