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/02_DEV_PLATFORM // 2021 — 2023
Developer ToolsAIPayments

PayPal Developer Portal & AI Authorization

From 45k to 135k monthly developers — and +$1M merchant revenue

PayPal Developer Portal & AI Authorization
Client
PayPal
Role
Senior UX Designer
Duration
21 months
Impact
3x portal traffic · +$1M merchant rev
/02The brief

Problem

PayPal's developer portal was the front door for integrators, but discovery, onboarding, and tool adoption were fragmented. Developers churned during integration; merchants in the US and EU were losing revenue to declined authorizations they couldn't diagnose or fix.

/03How we built it

Process

01
/STEP_01

Developer journey mapping

Mapped merchant authorization workflows end-to-end, identified friction points in onboarding, and built empathy maps and personas to align product, research, and engineering on the highest-leverage developer moments.

02
/STEP_02

Portal redesign + guided walkthrough

Streamlined the developer portal IA and built an in-product walkthrough so developers could learn and try new features without leaving context. Shipped in 4 months — traffic grew from 45,000 to 135,000 monthly visits.

03
/STEP_03

AI authorization tool

Designed an AI-driven tool that surfaces why a transaction was declined and how to fix it — improving merchant authorization rates and lifting revenue by $1M for US and EU merchants. Led the AI chat app that cut payment processing time by 14% and added $230k in revenue.

04
/STEP_04

Tooling adoption

Iterated on developer tools with usability testing and analytics — usage rose 30% in a single quarter while developer-side errors dropped 62%.

/04The result

Outcomes

Monthly developer portal visits
45k → 135k
Merchant revenue lift (US + EU)
+$1M
Developer tool usage in 1 quarter
+30%
Developer integration errors
−62%
/STORYBOARD10 frames · scroll →
Mapping two journeys at once
30+ interviews
/01_RESEARCH

Mapping two journeys at once

SMB merchants and the developers who serve them never lived on the same map. We synthesized 30+ interviews into one shared journey — and found the seven moments where the portal could either earn trust or lose it.
Where developers used to land
Days → minutes
/02_BEFORE

Where developers used to land

A dense marketing page with no clear path to keys, sandbox, or working code. Time-to-first-API-call averaged days, not minutes.
A welcome that does the work
45k → 135k / mo
/03_AFTER

A welcome that does the work

Solution-led entry: pick what you're building, get the right SDK, sandbox, and guide in one screen. Traffic 3x'd in a quarter.
Credentials, demystified
12 features · 1 surface
/04_SANDBOX

Credentials, demystified

One-screen sandbox: live keys, return URLs, and 12 feature toggles with plain-language explanations beside each switch.
From sandbox to production
/05_GO_LIVE

From sandbox to production

A clear, color-shifted live mode with the same mental model — so developers never relearn the dashboard when revenue starts flowing.
Errors, surfaced not buried
−62% errors
/06_OBSERVABILITY

Errors, surfaced not buried

Error log moved from a 4-click hunt to the home dashboard. Time-to-diagnose fell sharply.
AI explains the 500
+$1M revenue
/07_AI_DIAGNOSTIC

AI explains the 500

Click any failure and get the full request, the response, and an AI-written explanation of what to fix — lifting auth rates by enough to add $1M in merchant revenue.
API health at a glance
/08_ANALYTICS

API health at a glance

Twelve months of request volume and error rate, filterable per app. The chart is the headline; the table is the proof.
Reward the calm
/09_HEALTHY_STATE

Reward the calm

When nothing is on fire, the dashboard quietly cross-sells the next product — payouts, subscriptions, online checkout.
One responsive system
/10_DESIGN_SYSTEM

One responsive system

Every screen above is built from the same tokens, grid, and components — shipped across XXL → S in one library.
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