Timeline
5 Months
My Role
Solo Student Project for CareerFoundry's UX Bootcamp
PROBLEM
UNDERSTAND
Personal Finance is an intimidating topic.
As a young professional, I've noticed how many of my peers are after high salaries, but don't know what to actually do with their income. How can we make personal finance more approachable?
SOLUTION
A Personal Finance Starter-Pack.
COMPETITION
Many neo-banks exist with an array of features, but none actively educate users to increase their financial literacy.
All existing FinTech apps expect the user to be financially literate.
USER STORIES
Online Survey Research
ONLINE SURVEY + KEY INSIGHTS
USER RESEARCH
25 people participated in the 12-question online survey.
Most gained insights survey regarded budgeting:
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Overview of own spending varies drastically
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Half of the participants actively budget their income
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Digital tools are scarcely used for budgeting
Online Survey Research
INTERVIEWS
Three interviews were conducted, taking approx. 20 minutes to get through 12 questions. Quotes were transcribed and sorted into affinity maps.
Example Research Questions
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Could you please tell me a bit about your banking or where you currently keep your money?
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How does hearing words such as “budgeting”, “money”, “investing” and “personal finance” make you feel?
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Do you feel as if you know what you are doing with your money?
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Could you tell me a bit about what you currently do with money not spent?
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Is saving money a difficult habit for you? Why yes, Why not?
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What is your go-to move when you see your income enter your account?
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Have you ever created a budget for yourself?
THE MAIN INSIGHT
All Interviewees were all intimidated by the topic of personal finance.
All interviewees were all intimidated by the topic of personal finance, embodied by self-confidence issues and anxiety sparked the ideas for PlutoPay's main feature - a new, entertaining way of teaching personal finance needed to be created - PlutoPay’s gamified educational content.
USER PERSONAS
USER JOURNEY
Scenario:
Some friends of Simon are talking about ETFs, but he doesn't really know what's going on. He goes home and finds his frustration turn into motivation. Simon is now eager to learn more about ETFs, but already dreading actually hitting the books.
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USER FLOW
CARD SORTING
IDEATION
After the first run of naming and organizing the core features of the PlutoPay, I created an initial Sitemap. Understanding that others may have very different appreciations for nomenclature and categorizing, I outsourced support through an open card sorting. 20 cards were created, which were grouped and respectively labeled by 8 participants.
SITE MAPS
LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Example - Sending Money
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MID-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES
Example - Sending Money
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USER TESTS
USER TESTING
By observing 4 potential users navigate through different tasks using the mid-fidelity prototype, I was able to collect feedback to improve my design in terms of usability. Feedback was sorted through affinity mapping and weights of errors assessed with use of Affinity Mapping and weighting the Rainbow Spreadsheet.
Design preferences were tested with preferences tests.
AFFINITY MAPPING
Three Major Improvements
IMPROVEMENTS
FINAL SCREENS
The Final Product
VIDEO WALKTHROUGH
DESIGN
VISUAL DESIGN
The Style Guide
CONCLUSION + LESSONS LEARNED
What I'd do differently next time.
And with that, I’ve completed my first UX Design project! I’ve learned an immense amount by applying theory to an actual project. A few of these learnings and reflections are jotted down here:
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Focus on core features. The educational content was added to the project as I saw a need for it. In hindsight, the app would be stronger if the features covered within the brief – sending money and creating budgets – had more and effort dedicated to them.
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Don’t underestimate UI. I relied on the gamification of the educational content to come to life through UI, but this didn’t occur to the degree I set it out to. What was supposed to be an active game – think Duolingo for finance – turned out to be a collection of quizzes.
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Design Blindness is real. Take more breaks, catch your breath and continue iterating.
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Inspiration goes a long way. A lot of UX/UI solutions already exist, and you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. Do your research, expose yourself to design, and let yourself be influenced by the greats before you.
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