Making failed transactions make sense at AstroPay
ABOUT ASTROPAY
AstroPay is a global payments platform offering virtual and physical prepaid cards. Card activities and push notifications are critical touchpoints for helping users understand their transactions in real time. The notification system and activity states were restructured to improve clarity, reduce confusion, and better align communication with user behavior.
ROLE
Product Designer | UX Designer
TIMELINE
2025
LOCATION
Remote
challenge
~20% of card transactions fail, but users weren't contacting support because transactions failed—they were contacting support because they couldn't understand why or what to do next. Generic error messages like "System Failure" appeared when users hit spending limits, notifications didn't deep-link to relevant details, and there was no clear structure for communicating rejection reasons. Some notification titles exceeded 35 characters and didn't display properly, and AstroPoints notifications were being sent to markets where the feature wasn't even available.
process
We audited the existing notification system and analyzed support tickets to identify confusion patterns. From this research, we mapped the top 30 rejection reasons and defined the main communication gaps to address: inconsistent messaging, missing context, broken deep-linking, and a lack of market-aware logic.
This led us to redesign the card notification system into a unified, user-centered experience, working closely with Engineering and Marketing throughout.
How it Works
Standardized Message Framework All notifications were rewritten and categorized in English, Spanish, and Portuguese by urgency. Titles are concise and grouped into seven high-level categories, while message bodies follow a consistent structure explaining what happened, why it happened, and what users can do next—replacing technical language with human-readable copy throughout.
Context-Aware Notifications Push notifications now deep-link directly to Card Activity for seamless context. Context-aware logic ensures users only receive relevant messages for their market and account state, covering all transaction types including purchases, declines, reversals, and refunds.
Outcome
By introducing a standardized, human-readable messaging framework, ambiguity was removed from transaction notifications. Users were able to resolve transaction issues independently, significantly reducing confusion-driven support tickets for the ~20% of card transactions that fail.
The result is a clearer, more trustworthy experience that improves communication during failed transactions, supports smoother recovery flows, and ensures consistent messaging across all markets.
