In order to further research into how those pain points were taking place in young adults’ lives, I dived into finding out the following three findings. Based on my research, it is clear that learning to manage personal finance is a significant practice for young adults to become financially independent and have confidence in their finances.
In order to get further understanding of users’ needs and painpoints, I have conducted user interviews with 6 interviewees who met the target demograpihic. After doing the interviews, I was able to gain insights on common frustrations, goals, and behaviors that potential users would have and struggled with. Based on the findings, I came up with the following key insights which I grouped them to develop further in my design of the app as key components of controlling personal finance.
I proceeded with the ‘Crazy 8’s’ to go forward with pages and functions. After doing each sketch, I came up with a solution sketch by combining my best solution. By doing so, I was able to get a broader ideation and filter out to find feasible and innovative design.
I imagined this app could be a friendly assistant or a robot like ‘Wall-E’ to help users by encouraging them with feedback and providing insights and analytics on users’ financial experience. I focused on delivering a sense of intimateness and caring vibe about the service app.
2. Secondary Research
Market Analysis
Finding more insights from existing data
3. User Interview & Key Insights
Discover
Define
1.Sketches / Crazy 8’s
2. Brand Identity
1.Low-Fidelity
Develop
Design
Deliver
Takeaways
Stating problems to specify users’ painpoints would help me to find out any possible opportunities to build an feasible and efficient service.
In order to gain a more thorough understanding of the users’ pain points and problem context, I focused on the current market circumstances and users’ behaviours.
Observing users’ behaviour and current market status to analyze the problem context
From those insights of research and interviews, I developed a persona, Aya, to highlight key painpoints and goals for deeper understanding users. After creating the persona, I created task flows based on two given senarios to clearly show how users can find proposed solutions from the app.
By doing pages of hand-drawn sketches and prioritizing key features, I deveoped further based on my main task flows
After doing the sketches and creating my brand identity, I started to design the service from low fidelity wireframes to prepare for usability tests.
I have conducted two rounds of usability testing to see how users interact with the prototype and complete given tasks.
Ease your worries about your hectic spending.
Wallee.
Key Features
Wallet- Home Page
Analytics
Goals
Manage multiple bank accounts & credit cards
Analyze monthly total expenses with each category
Track all transactions and keep tracking monthly budget
Analyze weekly reports of spending & saving by visual graphs
Set up a financial goal for individual & in a group
Keep tracking goals and motivated to save more
Iteration
In order to understand how those main features are understandable and efficient for users, I have conducted two rounds of usability testing.
Key Findings / Opportunities from usability testing:
Providing too much information is not helping users to find the right information. It is important to organize and present them in orders and highlight significant reports.
Need to minimize and focus on the main information. Provide customized options for users to increase users control and freedom to choose and find their own needs
The graph was rather confusing for users. No clear information deliverability.
Expand the design system to be prepared for development
Develop further features and adding more details in designs (Card detail and adjustment pages etc.)
Thrid round of userbility testing with Hi-fi prototype - to discover how all design and information are efficiently and clearly itereated
Next Steps
Key takeaways
Never-ending iteration: I have learned that iteration is a key process to innovation.
Importance of user testing: As I was doing more and more testing, I was able to find advanced ideas and solutions throughout deeper understanding of users’ perspectives.
Storytelling & Deliverability: I noticed that having a feasible and realistic storytelling is a key component for improving a clear and relative deliverability and higher understanding for users.
Home page
Analytics page
Goals page
Solution Sketches
2. High Fidelity & Prototype
3. UI Library
Final Iterations
1st Round
2nd Round
Final
How Might We...
help young adults to control their personal budget with insightful plans and be motivated to save money?
Personal Finance Tracking - “I have troubles keeping up to date with all trasactions and if there is a transaction that I’m concerned about, I’am not always sure what to do and where to start finding.“
Analyzing Reuglar Patterns -“I usually found out that the patterns are overlapped and not easily changed. I hope there is something that can visualize my planning by seeing graphs or charts to analyze how I am doing well and how far I have done..“
Planning & Saving Money - “I always struggle to balance between spending and saving. I don’t know how to spend money wisely and meaningfully.“
2 / 3
Living paycheck to paycheck
2/3 of young adults say they are living paycheck to paycheck which means it is significant for them to keep every dollars under their budget
Young adults who are least financial confident and independent are 3 times more likely to have problems on debt.
In 2021, the research insured that the number of wasted reciepts are increased, and the amount of wasted receipts are about 686 million pounds annually.
X 3
Likely to have problem debt
686 Million
Pounds
Wasted receipts annually
Easy payment process makes spending money easier
As virtual payment methods are used often these days, it is hard to arouse conscious on controlling our expenditure habits, since spending money becomes easier than ever.
Lack of self-reflection
Young adults who are learning about their expenditure habits and financial patterns, don’t know whether they are doing good or bad, so they would end up having repetitive habits.
Wasted receipts
We still get paper receipts which are usually thrown away and it’s not only wasting paper, but also people forget about details of the transactions.
1
2
3
Difficult environment to set up healthy financial habbits
Iterated
Incorporate ‘Monthly report’ to highlight the focus on monthly spending.
Integrate a bar graph for a visual representation of the totals per category.
Adapt ‘Compared to November’ text to ‘Compared to November 2022’, mirroring ‘December 2022’, for consistency.
Signify the aggregate of all expenses to display the amount users have expended to date.
Embed a dropdown menu next to ‘November 2022’ for allowing users to select their comparison month.
Iterations 1/2
Analytics
December 2022
Food
Transportation
Subscription
Shopping
Utilities
Others
Spending
Saving
Mon
-$10
-$100
-$200
-$300
Tue
Wed
Thur
Fri
Sat
Sun
-$220
December 1st-7th
Total Budget
$1500
Weekly total spending
December 1st - 7th
-$ 375
Dec 2, 2022
Dec 3, 2022
$17.99
Netflix
Subscription
Scotiabank Debit card
Dec 1, 2022
Reciept
$17.99
Uber
Transportation
Scotiabank Debit card
Reciept
Compared to November
Spending
15% less spending
30% more saving
Saving
Wallet
Analytics
Goals
Analytics
December 2022
Food
$150
$70
$35
$20
$10
Transportation
Subscription
Shopping
Utilities
Others
Food
Subscription
Shopping
Utilities
Others
-$10
-$100
-$200
-$300
Wed
Thu
Fri
Sat
Sun
Mon
Tue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
-$220
1st week of December
Total Budget
Total Expenses
$1500
$375
Weekly total expenses
-$ 375
-$ 375
-$ 431
December 1st - 7th
Compared to November 2022
$90
Transportation
Monthly Report
Weekly Report
Saving
Spending
Spending
15% less spending
Saving
30% more saving
Compared to
November 23rd - 30th
November 23rd - 30th
December 1st - 7th
Spending
15% less spending
Wallet
Analytics
Goals
Iterated
Iterations 2/2
Include a ‘weekly report’ heading to differentiate it from the monthly report.
The ‘spending’ and ‘saving’ sections have been redesigned for clear distinction and ease of identification.
The language has been adjusted from ‘December 1st - 7th’ to ‘1st week of December’.
The section displaying total weekly spending has been expanded to increase visibility and provide detailed insights into the users' weekly expenses.
Problem
2. Task Flow
1.Persona
Keep tracking her monthly budget
Set a financial goal for a special occasion or purchasing pricy items such as a Macbook Pro.
Observe overall transactions
Find expenditure habits or bad financial patterns to advance
Has 4 bank accounts
Frequently uses Apple pay and virtual payment
Has a tight monthly budget and feels anxious about keep every transactions within a set budget
Irregularly save money / No emergency funds
Goals
Bio
Has trouble constantly saving money and loses motivation easily
Overwhelmed with managing multiple bank accounts
Doesn’t know about her expenditure habits
Frustrated about irregular consumption patterns
Age: 24
Location: LA, USA
Occupation: Marketer
Annual Income: $70,000
Aya
Pain Points