Design Process

For this project, the design approach was focused on gaining user feedback and making refinements throughout the entire process to ensure the application was achieving its mission and creating a solution that addressed the needs of its intended audience.

Gathering Information

Secondary Research was conducted to determine contributions this project could have to the current personal finance industry and set a basis for determining the target audience. User interviews and a focus group session were then conducted to gain insight into how our target users currently feel about their personal finances.

How are users currently budgeting?

• All participants reported using an online banking app when checking their expenses and account balances.

• When asked about using budgeting applications, participants expressed struggling to find one that matched their desired structure of tracking expenses, but enjoying having expenses automatically categorised.

• Many of our participants that currently have a budgeting method in place opted for using their own custom budgeting spreadsheet because it allowed them full flexibility over how they track their expenses.

• Some participants said they actively avoid budgeting due to embarrassment over their spending habits.

How do users currently feel about their financial literacy?

• Participants were often unsure of how their financial standings compared to their peers, which lead to them exhibiting shame when talking about how they’re managing their finances.

• Many participants expressed being overwhelmed by the amount of information that existed about the personal finance topic and didn’t know where to begin to start learning.

• However, the participants did not want to spend tons of their free time on learning or managing their finances. They aimed only to learn only about personal finances that would directly impact their financial standings.

• Participants also expressed wishes that money be more of an open topic among their peers so that they might get more help from their friends or have a better understanding of where they stand in comparison to their peers.

• Participants were also unsure of where to get financial advice that they could trust without having to pay large sums or spend excess time.

What do users want from their finance apps?

• Participants prioritised budgeting tools that gave them as much freedom to customise their budget set up as possible. They want to be able to do things like set up their own categories or sort their own transactions.

• Due to the private nature of personal finances, participants expressed a need to have control over their data. Participants wanted to know how their data is being used, how much, and be able to stop sharing or hide their information at any point.

• Participants communicated feeling overwhelmed by financial information and felt they consumed content better when shown through visualisations such as graphs and short-form videos or articles.

• Many participants were struggling to take what they learned from their general studying of finances and applying it to their own circumstances and needed help making the connection between them.

• Since many participants were relying on custom budgeting spreadsheets they made themselves, much of their budgeting process required lots of manual work to log their transactions. This was a point of frustration for participants and they wanted a tool that would eliminate this work.

What currently exists on the market?

The Venmo app is a mobile payment service that allows users to send and receive money from friends and family quickly and easily, with an integrated social feed for sharing transactions. This app is not a budgeting app, but does address the users’ desire for making money more social as users are able to share their transactions with friends.

The You Need A Budget (YNAB) app is a personal finance tool that helps users manage their money by encouraging proactive budgeting, goal-setting, and expense tracking to achieve financial stability. This app is a direct competitor as it offers financial tracking as well as learning content, but fails to truly address users needs as the app costs money to use and doesn’t offer the level of customisation users are seeking.

The Cleo app is a quirky AI-powered financial assistant that helps users manage their money through budgeting, spending insights, and personalised financial advice delivered via a chat interface. This is another budgeting tool, but with a more youthful approach to finances. However, the app has focused so heavily on it’s playfulness that it lacks the depth and functionality users are looking for in a budgeting tool.

Defining the User and Their Needs

Further work was completed to illustrate the findings from the user research conducted in the previous stage of this project. The work done during this stage was used to better articulate who the users are and what they need from the application to be referenced in the proceeding stages of this project

• Three user types were identified: Beginner, intermediate, and non-traditional income earner.

• Since the application is aimed at younger adults, I wanted to ensure I was capturing the needs and experience of target users from varying levels of financial experience and the unique employment situations that tend to occur in this age range.

• Using the newly formed personas, I created user stories to better articulate the target users’ intended relationship with this application.

• In doing so, I was able to better define what my target users need and how my application will address it.