Does Auto-Pay Reduce the ‘Pain of Payment’? A UX-Based Study on Spending Behavior in Digital Transactions

Abstract

The research paper focuses on how auto-pay features and elements of user experience (UX) design, such as UX friction and financial nudges, affect the financial awareness and behavior of users regarding their subscription spending in the context of digital payment settings. The research approach to be adopted was a quantitative, introspective based study, that is, using a structured questionnaire would be used to gather primary data including 200 respondents on a 5-point Likert scale. All hypotheses have been operationalized in the form of comprehensive constructs indicating the holistic user experience and tested with the help of one-sample t-tests in SPSS. The results show that the users do not turn out to be less financially aware in autopay systems as thought before, and that they are relatively highly aware despite being automated. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that reduced UX friction will affect subscription expenditure highly, which underscores the effect of convenient design on consumer action. Moreover, UX-based financial nudges have proven especially useful in raising the financial awareness level, showing that the design interventions could be used very well to encourage user control. Altogether, the research highlights this role of UX design in determining financial behavior, and as convenience makes interactions, it might be possible to add more responsible and informed use of digital payment, combining it with elements that promote awareness. Keywords: Digital Payment Systems, Auto-Pay Systems, UX Friction, Financial Awareness, Subscription Spending Behaviour, UX-Based Financial Nudges, Pain of Payments.