The smallest distance between two points is still under construction
Designing for waiting states
Earlier this year, I shipped a 2.3kg parcel from Japan to my hometown in Italy: a few gifts, makeup, beautifully handmade chopsticks and 7-Eleven socks. Besides spending over an hour cataloguing everything for customs, the process was pretty straightforward. I handed in my details, they took my parcel, and off I went with a tracking number and the reassurance of delivery within two months.
Five months later, in the middle of the Italian summer, my parcel was nowhere to be seen. All I knew was that it had left the country a few days after I handed it over.
I had questions
What do you communicate when there’s nothing to communicate? When a process is handed off to somebody else and is outside of your control? It took me down a rabbit hole I hadn’t investigated much before: the state between A and B, between departures and arrivals. The problem wasn’t necessarily the wait, but the doubt that developed within that timeframe: not knowing, and second-guessing whether I had done something wrong.
Money generally moves the same way in the case of a manual transfer, from one system to another, with different actors at play and various factors that may influence its speed. A transfer leaves your account, and for a while it’s nowhere. So how do you anticipate doubt, and address it the moment it starts surfacing? And what if you don’t?
I’ll start with the latter.
How people feel, and what they ask
Payment sent
Waiting
Missing
Arrived
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
CONFIDENT
UNCERTAIN
ANXIOUS
RELIEF
In a Trading 212 thread about bank-transfer deposits, a user waited almost three weeks and had to contact support.
The cause turned out to be how the reference code was typed.
Did it go through?
Copy and paste the reference number to prevent typing mistakes.
MoneySavingExpert user wrote that the money had come out of their Halifax account but hadn't reached Barclays: "it just seems to have vanished."
- Where is my money?
- Is this normal?
Screen:
Waiting screen
- “On its way” badge, amount and reference number
- 1–3 business day range, no countdown
On Trustpilot, users of money-transfer and investing apps complain about deposits not arriving after 7–8 business days, and funds stuck for over 72 hours with no explanation.
- What do I do now?
Screen:
Day 4 notification and screen
- We reach out
- One question to define next steps
- Is it all there?
Screen:
Notification and arrival moment
- Exact amount
- A clear next step
What if you don’t?
I read first hand accounts of delayed transfers on forums and review sites. Saying everyone feels the same is a generalisation, but it’s fair to assume that a transfer not hitting your account is a pretty poor position to be in.
On the day the money is sent, people feel confident. By day two they’re uncertain, and by day three they’re anxious. By day four, if nothing has happened and nobody has said anything, trust is gone. When the money finally arrives, what people feel is relief, not happiness.
Frustration peaks when the system stays silent, not when the money is slow. People can accept a three day wait, what’s harder is accepting no one to tell them what’s going on.
But what if you do?
Hypotheticals, within the context of an app.
Day 0 // Your money is on its way
We should give an indicative timeline for when the money should hit the account, but without a countdown: that is a promise the system can’t keep.
Day 1–3 // Waiting
The status stays on the home screen, calm and visible. Pulling to refresh shows the app is live, working and up to date, providing additional reassurance.
Day 4 // Missing
If the money hasn’t arrived, the system doesn’t wait to be asked, but reaches out first.
Monday 16 September
9:41
Let's find it together. It only takes a minute.
The promise we can keep
The app can’t promise when the money will arrive. That depends on the bank, the weekend, a public holiday, a reference typed wrong.
What it can promise is that the app will let them know the moment it arrives, and reach out if it hasn’t by Day 4.
It’s a smaller promise, but it’s one the app can always keep.
Reaching out first
Proactivity is a sign of trust. It tells people someone is paying attention and has nothing to hide. The opposite is also true, as we’ve seen in recent news. The outage was frustrating, but the silence around it was worse.
My parcel had the same problem. The post office knew it had left Japanese land, after that, nothing. A single message when the two months passed would have changed the whole experience: “Your parcel is taking longer than expected. Here’s what we know, and here’s what happens next.”
Picture a Day 4 check-in where the system does exactly that. A notification says your transfer hasn’t arrived yet, and presents a screen designed around one question: has the money left your bank?
We haven't received your
transfer
Most transfers arrive within 3 business days.
Yours is taking longer, so let's check where it is.
Has the money left your bank
account?
Transfer details
Need help now? Chat with us
Each answer leads you to certainty and next steps, and nobody is sent back and forth between an app and their bank.
My takeaways
The parcel happily arrived in one piece, to my relief.
- Doubt grows in silence, not in time. A long wait with updates feels shorter than a short wait without them.
- Promise only what you can keep. “We’ll tell you” beats “it’ll arrive by Thursday”.
- Nothing new to say is still something to say. An empty update is reassurance.
The distance between two points is often out of our control, but what happens in between and how that is handled doesn’t have to be.