Project overview
Background
As I enter my late 20s, my conversations with friends have quickly shifted from “what did you do this weekend”, to “what’s the best bank and which has the best interest rates”. People are starting to think about saving for larger goals such as grad school, a down payment, a wedding, or a large vacation. To prepare for these big life moments, people are always looking for ways to save better and smarter.
PROBLEM
Current apps assume that users have one account for their savings. In reality, users have their assets spread across multiple accounts to diversify their investments and get the best return. Because of this, it is difficult for users to get a grasp of where they currently stand on their progress towards their financial goals.
Project goals
project results
tools
Allow users to set financial goals and to view their progress
A web application that allows users to view a consolidated view of their accounts
A web application that allows users to set financial goals and to view their progress
Sketch
User research
competitive analysis
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What I thought would be an hour of research took me a full day to do. There’s just so many products out there for what it seems like every type of financial problem. See the image on the left for just a few companies out there and its key purpose. What I’ve noticed is that most of these products are created to help us save smarter.
Current apps in the market either restrict users to save in a single account or view multiple accounts in a consolidated view. There’s no option for users who want to create and manage multiple financial goals spread across multiple accounts.
user interviews and personas
I interviewed 10 people and discovered two key personas: Digital natives and digital “immigrants”.
Digital natives
Digital "immigrants"
- 40 years old and younger
- Born or brought up during the age of digital technology and therefore are familiar with computers from an early age
- Mobile device is their primary banking method
- Lack of primary financial knowledge among family and friends
- Feels unprepared for major life moments
- 40+ years old
- Brought up before the widespread use of digital technology
- Hesitant in sharing financial information to financial companies
- Learned reactively - not proactively
- Leaned on financial advisors
- Wish they had started building savings earlier
Key takeaways
- Both digital natives and digital ”immigrants” have multiple accounts at once - credit, checking, saving, investing, brokerage, etc.
- Savings are typically done across multiple accounts and are often combined for one big moment.
Planning
Persona prioritization
From my research, I decided to focus my attention on the digital natives as it seems like they would be more willing to try a new financial product than a digital “immigrant”.
Home page feature
For this project, I focused on the home page and drafted a few stories to design for:
- As a digital native I want to see a total overview of all my accounts so that I understand my current financial situation.
- As a digital native I want to see my current goals so that I know how close I am to my goals.
- As a digital native I want to see my current budget so that I can see if I’m within my target.
- As a digital native I want to view notifications so that I know what’s planned or coming up.
A lot of apps in the market assume or force users to only save in one account. On the contrary, I was really intrigued to learn that users typically have their savings dispersed in a few accounts (savings, investments, brokerage) and that it was difficult for them to see how much they have and how close they are to each of their goals. They often would create a spreadsheet, having to manually list out account totals and allocate them to specific goals.
Prototyping
I started my design with my sketch book. I tried to explore the different items that I gathered were important such as goals, budgets, assets, liabilities, and accounts.
low-fidelity
I spend time iterating my designs in low-fidelity based on user feedback and user research. See below for three of my major revisions.
My first take (left) was a mobile app as I felt that many digital natives have used, and are comfortable with using, mobile apps. However, when I presented this idea to a few of them, they mentioned that when they are typically home or in a private space when they are looking into their financial accounts. I decided to move my design to a web app, which allows more information to be displayed at once due to the increased screen real estate.
My second take (middle) came about when trying to address user frustration with managing multiple accounts at once. I decided to implement a notification section so that the users can see upcoming activity within each of their accounts. They can then look into their accounts further to track any movement of funds, bill due dates, loan payments, etc.
My third take (right) changes the home page to emphasize the user’s current goals and budgets, which is a summarized view from multiple accounts. I found that it is more important to the users to understand their progress towards their goals and if they are under the budget that they set for themselves. The accounts tab can then be used if more specific account information is needed.
high-fidelity
remarks:
If I were to build on this, here are a few concepts I would like to design and test for:
- a goals page that allows users to create and view their financial goals. They can “allocate” their savings from different accounts to each goal
- a feature that recommends services and products from financial companies to users based on their financial goals and needs
