School Meal Account Payment
Design a family payment experience for meal balances, low-fund alerts, siblings, automatic reload, receipts, and payment support.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
School meal accounts can involve several children, daily charges, subsidies, spending limits, card fees, and negative balances. Families should understand costs without children being publicly stigmatized for account status.
User context
Alicia manages lunch accounts for two children at different schools. One receives a partial subsidy, and the other has a field trip meal charge that she does not recognize.
Product problem
Alicia needs accurate child-level balances and payment controls, plus a private route to resolve an unfamiliar charge or difficulty paying.
Objective
Create household overview, payment, automatic reload, and charge support states for school meals.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Review each child's available balance and recent charges
- Add funds with transparent allocation and fees
- Configure a bounded low-balance reload rule
- Question a charge or request confidential payment support
Screens and states
- Household meal overview
- Add-funds checkout
- Automatic reload settings
- Charge detail and support
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Alicia sees that one child has three days of estimated meal funds remaining
- 02
She adds $40 to that account and reviews the zero-fee bank transfer option
- 03
She sets a $15 threshold with a $30 monthly reload cap
- 04
Alicia opens the field trip charge and sends a private question to the school
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Separate balance, pending payments, subsidies, charges, and adjustments
- Show processing time and any fee before payment
- Let guardians allocate one payment across children
- Make automatic reload threshold, amount, cap, and pause controls explicit
- Keep financial support private and available without a failed payment
Constraints
- Children must still receive meals according to school policy regardless of interface status
- Only verified guardians can view account details
- Bank and card payments may settle on different timelines
Reality check
States worth considering
Finish line
What to deliver
- Four responsive screens covering payment, reload, and charge support
- A balance model for available, pending, subsidized, adjusted, and negative states
If you want more
Optional extensions
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.