the last finance app you’ll ever need
Understanding the design space: Competitive reviews
Apple Wallet
Insight: Many financial products tend to be limited in scope and don’t offer diverse functionality.
Identifying pain points: User interviews
Research goals
- Gauge users previous experiences with competitors products
- Identify friction points in existing apps
- Understand what features and functions are most important to users
Key findings:
- Users have limited access to tools that improve their financial wellbeing.
- Users feel they can manage their money more effectively when they have information regarding spending or finances.
- Pertinent information being spread across pages/products contributes to cognitive load and user overwhelm.
- Ease of use, learnability, content structure, and feature set were the largest factors impacting a users experience.
Takeaway: Users experience overwhelm having to use multiple products to manage their finances. This is due to limited access to utilities and/or cognitive load relating to managing fragmented information.
Defining the problem: How Might We/Problem statement
Takeaway: The design needs to unify finance management through simplifying processes, reducing cognitive load, and ensuring high learnability.
Humanizing the experience: User Journey
Jordan
53
Boise, ID
Baker/business owner
Scenario
Jordan’s wants to open a second bakery, but managing finances keeps him from being able to focus on his business. He wants a simple way to track finances and save to open another location.
Expectations
Track finances quickly and easily
Gain a better understanding of his finances to streamline his growth
Spend more time focusing on his business and not the books
Create account
Download app
Create account
Build out profile
Set profile preferences
Link banks
“I really hope this is something different because I really cant stand to deal with yet ANOTHER app to use to for managing my business”
Jordan feels a bit exhausted and defeated trying to find a way to manage his money more easily.
Allow users to import information from other finance apps/mobile profile
Set business goals
Determine plan (budget/save)
Gather data (income/goal)
Select accounts for use
“Okay so I can at least set things up in a way to work towards some of my goals, thats nice. Hopefully its not too complicated”
Jordan feels a bit more hopeful seeing that he can set things up for his business that wont require lots of work or effort.
Provide users with plan templates to streamline set up
Create savings
Select plan
Input data
Dictate rules
Authorize /create plan
“Wow well if I can just set this all up in a way that doesn’t need me constantly managing my money that definitely would make it all easier for me!”
Jordan starts to become excited when he realizes that his goals may be a lot more attainable than they have been in the past.
Allow users to create custom rules to tailor their plans to them
Manage finances
Log in
Monitor cashflow and make payments
Track progress and modify goals or parameters as necessary
“This is honestly so nice! Since I can just track everything from here I really can spend more time focusing on my business instead of always having my head in the books!”
Jordan is very pleased to see how simple the app is to use and to manage his money without needing to commit a bunch of time.
Provide users with the option to customize dashboards to provide more relevant information to them
Open bakery
“Wow! I thought this was gonna take a lot of time and work saving the money for a second location. This made it so much easier and manageable.”
Jordan is ecstatic when he realizes that he is able to achieve his goal of opening a second location. Especially since saving was easier than he anticipated.
Allow for joint plans to enable users to work towards common goals
Insight: The design solution has a significant opportunity to reshape users perceptions in regards to managing finances but also empower them with a sense of control and optimism.
Defining the function: Feature Set
Insight: The designs functionality focuses on these key user needs as they tend to be the primary utility required for managing finances. Packaging them together enables our design to provide comprehensive value to a large group of users.
Conceptualizing the product: User Flows
Basic flow demonstrating the click path to send money. With just 4 clicks users can complete the task.
Takeaway: To maximize learnability while minimizing cognitive load, the information architecture will focus on short, efficient click paths. This eliminates design bloat while streamlining user experience.
Building content structure: Sitemap and Card Sorting
Initial sitemap
Similarity matrix of card sort
Takeaway: The card sort validated the initial sitemap, however, by packaging budgets and savings separately, the information architecture can better reinforce efficiency and learnability.
Arranging the experience: Wireframes
Flow: sending money
User selects recipient
Input details, confirm transaction
Flow: creating a plan
Insight: In order to remain aligned with the design goal of efficiency and learnability, it was crucial to minimize decision points enabling users to accomplish tasks in as few steps as possible.
Developing a visual language: Style Guide
Insight: Soft colors were strategically employed to subtly emphasize functionality or hierarchy while reducing visual clutter. This not only reinforces brand identity, but ensures high learnability and intuitive user experience.
Design ideation: Mockups and Prototypes
Budget home and plan creation (mobile web)
Savings home and plan creation (mobile web)
Flow for transferring money (mobile web)
Takeaway: To enhance learnability and reduce cognitive load, mockups incorporated infographics and a clear visual language which would form the foundation and focus of testing in the next stage.
Validating design: Usability testing
Research goals
- Assess learnability of the design
- Understand what aspects provide the most value.
- Determine if the current IA/layout support intuitive flows.
- Observe if aspects of the design create usability errors and require revision.
Participant criteria
15-65 yo
US resident
Desire to improve financial health
Current user of finance products
Various degrees of technological proficiency
Testing methodology
Moderated in person usability test
6 participants
30 min sessions
4 tasks, post test questionnaire
Key findings:
- Visualized data and infographics help reduce cognitive load while providing the users with more information.
- Current design lacks visual clarity and basic flows need more emphasis.
- More customization options will allow users to make the product more relevant to them both in function and content.
Takeaway: Testing validated the assumption that visualized data effectively reduces cognitive load while enhancing information comprehension. However, the design required more emphasis in regards to user flows, improved visual clarity, and customization options for users to tailor their experience.
Implementing feedback: Design revisions
Before
After
By readjusting layout and format, users now are provided with more information regarding their plans at a glance.
CTA’s have been redesigned to provide more emphasis while content formatting was restructured to allow for more information to be presented visually.
Before
After
Before
After
Reformatting contact cards and nav bar created a more structured visual hierarchy and harmonious layout.
Takeaway: With insights from testing, revisions were made to provide more information visually, bring more relevant information forward, and provide more context and emphasis on action points and CTA’s.
Final design
Retrospective
QuickCash was designed to streamline finance management, all without the stress. Using a strong user centered design process, I was able to identify the need for more utility and information so that users may build a strong foundation for financial wellness in an accessible format. By developing a multifunctional design, QuickCash now eliminates the need for cumbersome or bloated accounting and packages it all into a seamlessly integrated platform. By placing the user at the forefront and approaching the design in a manner that aligned with business goals, I was able to build a product that both meets user needs but also enables business success long term.
Key learnings
- Current finance tools do not provide enough relevant utility or information to comprehensively meet users needs.
- Visualized data significantly reduced cognitive load while also bolstering perceived value for users.
- Customization and relevancy to the user is one of the largest contributing factors to impact user base retention.
- High learnability helped reinforce positive user experience through making the design accessible and easy to use.
Next steps
- Explore enhanced customization and user product curation
How/why?
Through additional research and A/B testing the design can be pushed further to more deeply explore how to tailor the product to a user. Tagging/labeling, expanded social elements , or more robust widgets/dashboard customization could further provide a more personalized and relevant experience to users enabling a stronger value proposition.
- Research and implement adjacent feature sets
How/why?
Additional market research can help identify any potential feature sets or utility other competitors products may have that may be relevant to our product. By identifying these future updates and feature rollouts can further expand upon the functionality of QuickCash and further secure its position within the market.