The Evolution History of PayPal

PayPal as The world's largest online payment platform is now well known, in December 1998 , PayPal, founded by Peter Thiel and Max Levchin, is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., and was acquired by 1.5 billion US dollars in October 2002 by the world's largest E-commerce platform, ebay.

At first, PayPal was a transfer function between Palm pilots devices, also known as "beam money". With the email address as the transfer method, PayPal is the original, making the transfer in life become more convenient.

The following figure is the first version of the PayPal interface in 1999:

After a few revisions, this is the 2007 before the revision of the interface:

This is the 2007 revision of the interface, followed by this version based on the details of fine-tuning, but also the most common version:

Here are the pages of the three regions (USA, China, Japan) before the new revision on June 19, 2012:

June 19, 2012, PayPal finally released a new design version:

New landing page, feel very concise, generous

Comparison of old and new versions

The 2012 version of the home page conforms to the current design trend, leaving the first impression is very good: quiet large background map (such design is widely Citibank, Square, Salem hep, etc.) and lightweight, concise design.

First, look at the changes in the information structure of the old and new editions:

For example, the name of the main function of the personal page becomes simpler:

Before the revision is: Pay Online, Send, get money

After the revision is: Buy, Sell, transmits

The revamped copy is shorter and more straightforward, and the new layout is easier to understand.

These main functional categories below have a lot of "how to ...", the guidance for new users is very strong.

In addition, each function form page also provides a clear flowchart (usually a very unique illustration style) to guide users, and also accompanied by demo demo video, the rate below the interface, security, privacy protection and other information prompts timely resolution of the new user's concerns and doubts.

This streamline design from top to bottom so that new and old users have a good experience: new users can get help timely information, the old users only need to focus on the form area.

In addition, there are the following changes:

1. The main navigation from the tabs into the form of text, the structure of the extra home page removed

2. The login box is moved to the top right by the upper left corner (which is commonly used by bank websites).

3. The down arrow to the right of the navigation text hints at secondary navigation

4. Auxiliary information (Contact us, search, etc.) move from head to bottom

5. New Explore page: show some innovative projects (such as PayPal here)

The following is a comparison of the different pages:

Pay Online-> Make a Payment

Send Money-> send Someone

Get Paid-> Request a Payment

New version of the unique explore:

And business change is not as big as personal, because it is basically a marketing page.

Before the revision is: FX, Team,

After the revision is: Complete Payment FX, popular Tools, specialized FX

The sort of copy change is a bit confusing relative to the personal page--it gets longer, perhaps more clearly.

Business page revision before and after comparison:

New design Details

Forget the mailbox button, the input box is empty when large and the copy directly displayed, start typing after the button to reduce the copy only a question mark, forget the password button is the same

The highlighted sign up button in the login form shows that PayPal's product strategy is now still tending to pull new users

User first access to the new version of PayPal navigation

Mobile End Design

Next, look at the new version of PayPal for mobile devices to do the adaptive:

As a result, access to the mobile device is still a large page, but the top adds an ad hint to download the app

Here's the 2001 mobile page.

The following is the current mobile page (mobile.paypal.com), visible more than 10 years of the past has not changed much

End

This time, PayPal has changed its whole station, perhaps in order to allow itself to continue to remain competitive in front of the fast-growing emerging rivals (square, etc.).

The entire site is still being updated (though the page is still the old 07 version, but have to say that such a large span of the jump is confusing, expect to see a complete makeover in the next few months PayPal, we will continue to pay attention to PayPal follow-up updates, once more updates, will give you a further in-depth analysis.