TIMELINE: 4 weeks
PLATFORM: App - adding a feature
TOOLS: Figma, Figjam, Maze
ROLES: Researcher, UX Designer, UI Designer
Users are overlooking important aspects of their finances.
THE PROBLEM
Personal finance tools are more widespread than ever but it seems that a lot of people aren’t equipped to make the most of these. This is causing them to overlook important aspects of their finances. In the United States, only 32% of households prepare a budget and 59% of adults in the U.S. admitted to living paycheck to paycheck in 2019.
Allowing users to create specific goals without opening another account.
THE SOLUTION
According to investopedia, people are more likely to save money if they set specific goals. Users don’t want to feel constricted by creating a budget and many budgeting and goal setting apps don’t work like users want them to.
Allowing users to set multiple goals without opening a new account.
100% of users interviewed said that they would ideally like to use their banking app for everything (budget, goals, sending money, etc)
100% of users need to be able to set goals for themselves and visually see those goals in order to hold themselves accountable.
Ability to choose automatic or manual contribution.
80% of users mentioned that they would forget to keep up on their goals or budget if it wasn’t automated.
80% of users want to save more but are intimidated by money and don’t want to feel limited when it comes to spending.
Just want to see the full set of final designs? I got you.
Click below to jump to the end, I won’t hold it against you 😊
THE PROCESS
Are you ready? Lets get into it 🎉
Financial literacy is something I am very passionate about. I loved getting the chance to come up with a solution that will help users reach their goals and feel in charge of their savings. I can’t wait to share all of the cool things I learned.
People don’t know how to save and can get overwhelmed easily.
HYPOTHESIS
In this case, my hypothesis hit the nail on the head. There are so many resources and ways of doing things that it can be overwhelming to figure out the right one for you. This can keep people from saving.
The majority of people don’t know how to approach saving and can find it overwhelming, so they don’t even try.
RESEARCH
When doing initial market research I came across some pretty interesting statistics. My big question after this was why? Why is it that people don’t know how to save?
When looking at other banks, some had every new shiny feature and some had no features. US Bank was right in the middle.
COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS
I conducted a competitive analysis to identify where US Bank stands when it comes to its competitors. I focused on US Banks’ strengths, weaknesses, and features competitors had.
100% of users interviewed were frustrated that they needed multiple apps to manage their finances.
INTERVIEWS
I conducted 6 Zoom interviews, lasting 30-45 minutes. I asked questions surrounding savings habits, banking apps, and goals.
During interviews, I learned that 75% of the time users would delete the extra finance apps due to lack of use and frustration with the app itself. Which led to the question, how can US Bank support users and make it so they can track more of their Finances in the app? I wanted to talk to users who have and use their mobile banking app.
Defining user needs
To dive a little deeper, user insights, comments, behaviors, and experiences were organized into an empathy map to better understand the users I am designing for. A clear pattern emerged allowing me to identify major insights and user needs.
Main Needs:
Main Insights:
Meet Nick, the overwhelmed saver.
THE PERSONA
After gaining a clear understanding of my users, I was able to dive a little deeper. Using patterns discovered from my empathy map, Nick was born. Take a closer look here.
What features did the US Bank App already have and how could I fill in the gaps to accommodate Nick’s needs?
HEURISTIC EVALUATION
I conducted a heuristic evaluation to review the US Bank app in regard to usability heuristics to help pinpoint strengths and potential areas of improvement.
POV Statements and HMW Questions
IDEATE
To fully understand our users and their problems, especially Nick’s, I created POV statements from the needs and insights in the empathy map. From there, I came up with HMW questions to help drive brainstorming.
By Putting myself in Nicks’s shoes, I brainstormed possible solutions for each HMW question, generating multiple solutions. After brainstorming, I was able to identify the feature that would best meet Nicks's needs.
Nick being able to create savings goals was identified as the solution that would have the highest impact with the least effort.
How would this solution fit into the existing design?
A sitemap was created in order to determine where the savings goals feature would fit into the app and where it would be most accessible. Based on feedback from some quick testing, I decided it would be best to nest them inside the user’s savings account.
Link to sitemap here.
ARCHITECTURE
If Nick was creating a savings goal, how would he navigate through the app to create it?
I created a flow based off of the scenario that Nick would be creating a savings goal. I wanted to better understand how Nick would navigate the app, actions he would take to create a goal, and how the feature would fit into the app.
Link to user flow here.
DESIGN
Sketches
Based on my site map and user flows, I sketched out some key screens that Nick would encounter as he navigated the app to create a savings goal. I wanted to get as many ideas down on paper as possible before digitizing them. Link to sketches here.
Hi-fidelity wireframes
After sketching, I jumped right into hi-fi wireframes. I felt pretty confident in some ideas after sketching and since matching the brand was just as important as the usability of the design, I skipped lo-fi wireframes.
As I was designing, I noticed some inconsistencies in the US Bank app, especially when it came to spacing, use of grid, and button size. I tweaked those elements to make them consistent across the platform.
Examples of key screens in the app. Take a closer look here.
Testing provided valuable insights into my design.
TESTING
I created a prototype from my hi-fidelity designs in order to successfully gain insight and identify pain points through testing. I performed an unmoderated test due to project time constraints. I was able to test the following with ∫:
If the location of the savings goals was intuitive.
If users can successfully create a new goal.
Identify any errors in US Banks new savings feature.
There were 3 things users clearly struggled with.
ITERATIONS & REVISIONS
The feedback I received from testing was pretty clear. I created an affinity map to see if I could uncover anything else from the data but still, there were 3 glaringly obvious struggles.
Users were confused on where the savings goals existed
Even though previous feedback pointed to nesting the goals inside the savings account, this was not as intuitive in reality.
Solution: feedback received from testing pointed towards goals having their own section on the landing page.
The Bar graph was not effective
Users were confused by the graph as it had no context and wasn’t providing as much insight as it could.
Solution: Based on feedback, numbers were added on the y axis and percentage of goal completed was added to each goal. This would provide the users context when looking at the graph.
A way to contribute to a goal manually was missing:
One user pointed out that they were confused on how to manually contribute to a goal. They were the only person to notice this and it was a huge miss on my end.
Solution: After further testing on button placement, I simply added an easily accessible button by the “create a new goal” button.
Looking back on this project…
REFLECTION
I was able to create a successful product for US Bank that fit with their existing brand and provided value to users in reaching their savings goals. In the future, there are a few things I would like to iterate on.
How usability might be improved in future iterations and development
Implementing notifications - mainly for users who choose “manually contribute” so they do not forget to contribute to their goal.
A more predictive flow when creating a goal - this would mean minimal work on the users part. If they chose a due date of 12 months from now, and wanted to contribute semi-monthly, US Bank would automatically do the math and fill in the how much money the user would need to contribute to their goal every time.
Next steps:
Implement improvements to the usability of the app mentioned above.
Further usability testing based on improvements made.
Iterate on testing results if necessary.
Pass on to developers.