UX RESEARCH | MOBILE DESIGN
Personal Finance App for College Students/ New grads
UX Researcher
UX Designer
Sep - Dec 2021
Summary (for busy folks)
Institute of Systems Research team of University of Maryland (UMD) and our team of 5 UXers wanted to understand how recent college students feel about and manage their finances, and then design a mobile app that suits to their mobile usage patterns and helps them achieve their financial goals.
Over the course of 3 months (Sept to Dec '21), we interviewed 5 current students and recent grads at UMD. Once the data was collected, we created conceptual models to communicate our findings to stakeholders. I then led the Design-effort to implement our findings and design a High-fidelity mobile app.
Work and visuals presented in this case study are my contributions to the project.
PROBLEM
Many Americans are financially unhealthy, making poor money choices.
Source: U.S. Financial Health Pulse report (2018)
Common issues include poor financial management (e.g. depleting savings) and frequent use of loans and credit lines (e.g. overspending driving credit card debt and high student loan repayments).
Americans struggle to meet long-term savings goals, increase their net worth, and saving for future expenses is a pressing goal.
As per the report, Individuals also shy from using paper budgets and instead desire applications that “track everything, [and] use built-in analysis tools".
RESEARCH AREAS & PARTICIPANTS
Our research comprised of two key areas: 1) Analysing financial behaviors of our participants and, 2) Figuring out mobile app patterns and techniques that drive learning, goal setting and engagement.
Our participant pool comprised of 5 participants between the ages of 18 - 25 y/o, and were either current students at UMD, or had graduated recently.
Why college students/new grads?
We sought to explore the financial habits of a generation that embraces technology, and leverages apps and the internet to guide their financial decisions.
PROCESS
This project was conducted in the following 5 phases:
PLANNING
To ensure clear goals and aligned timelines, we meticulously planned and laid out our deliverables in chronological order, considering the team's progress through each phase of the UX research process. This approach provided a valuable roadmap for the next few months, helping us to stay focused and on track as a team.
RESEARCH / DATA COLLECTION
From October to November 2021, we conducted five semi-structured interviews over Zoom with recent or current undergraduate and graduate students in their 20s, recruited through personal contacts and connections.
Semi-structured interviews allowed us to gain a deeper understanding of the nuances of finance management among young adults and their specific needs and requirements for a financial coach interface.
Our script for these interviews involved the following areas of questions:
App usage and preferences
Have they used apps to achieve a goal?
What kinds of apps/technologies do they like to use?
Financial behavior
Engagement techniques
Gamification
Interface preferences
After each interview, we held an interpretation session with at least two additional team members who had not been present. This allowed the entire team to synthesize the findings from all interviews and challenge any assumptions made by the interview team.
We also used affinity notes, which captured unique ideas in first-person "I" statements.
We clustered affinity notes into similar themes, iteratively arranging and summarizing them to form higher-order themes. The resulting affinity diagram revealed unique insights that informed our research findings.
FINDINGS
Our interviews and affinity diagram revealed key findings that informed our vision for a financial interface that promotes fiscal behavior change.
Major themes around improved finance tracking, self-imposed controls and customizations, allowing users to set goals and a need to learn more about finance emerged.
To convey our findings to stakeholders more effectively, we believed that crafting experience models conveying financial sentiments and behaviors, based on our interview findings, would be beneficial and more easily digestible.
Two kinds of models were selected to convey research findings to stakeholders:
First was an identity model: Which tells stakeholders how users see themselves: their characteristics and their wants
It showcases personalities through their traits, behaviors, and preferences. For example, Curious Cathy is self-reliant, plans ahead, and makes decisions after thorough research. She also desires access to auto-generated insights and a calendar for better goal planning.
Second was a Customer Journey Map: That displays a visual storyline of every engagement a customer will have with the interface we create
In our Customer Journey Map, we follow Samantha, a recent graduate who realizes she knows nothing about finance after landing her first job. She wants to educate herself, but she is unsure where to begin. She turns to her family for advice, but their guidance is limited. She then tries Google, but the sheer volume of information overwhelms her. Undeterred, she continues her quest for knowledge, using YouTube and Reddit to find specific information and answers.
Throughout her journey, we have mapped her emotions at each stage and identified opportunities for our interface to provide solutions.
DESIGN
Armed with a deep understanding of our core users, their financial sentiments and apprehensions, and their experiences with apps and technologies, we distilled a set of design considerations to inform our final interface concept.
Drawing on these considerations, we concluded that a mobile app interface that integrates budgeting, expense tracking, goal-setting, community-sourced finance education, and actionable insights is the most preferred interface for our users.
Early discussions and feedback sessions helped us crystallize essential features based on our findings, enabling us to expedite the conceptualizing and designing of the high-fidelity prototype.
Behold - MoneySmart, a fully personalized finance management, budgeting, and education app
It provides actionable insights into your financial behavior, empowering you with smart tools and services to nudge you towards financial well-being.
Home Screen
Upon opening the app, users are greeted by a personalized insight, informing them that they may exceed their food and drinks budget. Below that, a budget card displays the percentage of the monthly budget spent on each category, such as food and drinks, groceries, and so on.
To harmonize current enjoyment and long-term financial well-being, spending is visualized using a gauge/speedometer.
Our home screen also features cards that allow users to set financial goals with a step-by-step interface, review trending community topics, and explore Finance 101 courses to gain financial knowledge. The Analytics and Insights card provides a high-level overview of key insights in a visually appealing format.
Goals Screen:
The Goals screen lets users set and track their financial goals. The calendar uses color-coded labels to visualize financial goals across the month. Below, cards indicate whether the user is on track to achieve each goal.
Community Screen:
On the Community screen, users can search for topics like "investments" and receive two types of results: articles, tips, and tricks generated by the app owners, and community questions posted by other users.
Analytics and Insights Screen:
On this page, users can add, edit, and manage monthly and weekly budgets. Personalized insights are accompanied by actionable solutions and educational resources, empowering users to improve their financial health.
NEXT STEPS
Continue Designing the App
Though self-explanatory, the app's features require further context and screens to justify their inclusion and demonstrate their benefits to end users.
Usability Test
Another next step would be to perform usability tests with as many users as possible.
Develop a web-focused version
Several of our interview participants managed their finances on desktop using Excel and other tools. A web-based application would benefit these users, while also allowing others to use the app on different platforms.
LEARNINGS
Keep asking questions
Throughout the entire process, from user interviews to team discussions, thoughtful open-ended questions foster healthy dialogue and spark new ideas.
Teamwork makes the dream work
Clear division of tasks and responsibilities, and adherence to the initial research plan timeline, enabled us to meet deadlines, deliver high-quality work, and contribute optimally to the project.
Taking initiative
Leveraging my expertise in interaction design, I took the initiative to create screen designs for the team, which benefited us all. During the final stretch of deliverables, each team member had assigned tasks, but we remained in one room to foster collaboration. The team's feedback on my designs was invaluable, and it helped us deliver a polished product.
