Value
Track your spending, optimize your budget and improve savings to reach those goals that truly matter to you
01
Context
In today’s connected, consumerist lifestyle, one can easily be overwhelmed by the complexity and time burden of managing personal finances.
We have various services and infrastructures maintaining fragments of our financial footprint – banks, UPI apps, all the various wallets, investment portfolios, and so many more micro-services.
Usually, the financial-unsavvy person would get overloaded by this information and tend to ignore it altogether.
Early Assumptions
I started my research by writing down some basic assumptions I have on the target demographic and the problems they might be facing
02
Secondary Research
I searched for articles and studies related to how people manage their money to figure out common user behaviors and also examined conversations happening in spaces like Reddit to know the best practices they recommend or adopt. Following are the insights
Users shift money to other accounts meant for savings and goals
use of a vault-like feature - allocating money for different purposes
Wait, budget, and save - common advice for buying large purchases
Rising expenditure in households
Essentials and financial commitments are addressed first before discretionary expenditures
03
Competitive Analysis
What I found out was many a product had too many functionalities. They lacked a singular focus on helping users manage their money better. Mostly, everything is oriented toward spending. The UPI apps we use, fintech products like Cred, Slice, Phonepe, and Google pay - all want us to spend money through their platform. They made it sophisticatedly easy to do so.
But in those lines of one tap payment - from online shopping to Kirana stores, somewhere we forgot to keep track, keep a log on that one crucial thing -- do our expenditures match with what we truly value?
04
Primary Research
Except for Fold money, all else focuses on making the user spend through their app.
Now with rising expenditures shouldn’t budgeting features be a norm?
How do users budget these days? Or do they even now? This brings us to our primary research.
User Survey responses ( Pain points )
Lack of a clear budget: Almost half of the respondents mentioned lack of a clear budget as a hindrance to saving and investing
Lack of financial knowledge
Difficulty tracking expenses
All have issues with prioritizing savings and investing
SIP, Mutual Funds, and Stocks are favorite investing options among youngsters
User Interviews
I interviewed 4 people and the following were the insights
Balancing financial vs personal goals: 4 out of 4 participants mentioned difficulty balancing financial goals with personal or social experiences.
Feel confident: 3 out of 4 participants said they want to feel confident about managing finances and make rational spending decisions to pursue personal interests.
Tracking and Budgeting: 2 out of 4 participants said they struggle with allocating budgets and tracking spending without feeling overwhelmed or anxious.
Expense tagging and categorization: 2 out of 4 participants said they forgot to tag expenses or categorize them properly, leading to confusion at the end of the month.
05
User Persona
Collecting all our insights from user research, I crafted a coherent user persona and charted a user journey map for the same
Tinder has a feature called share your date - as a safety feature
The swipe-based matching system is intuitive and allows users to quickly browse and match with potential dates, enabling faster connections for those who want immediate plans.
Breeze can book a venue by choosing a time and location.
Bumble positions women in control of initiating conversations, empowering them with added safety and conversation features
06
Breaking down the problem
I broke down the problems into high-level goal and the why behind it
Redefined Problem Statement
How might we help users establish clear and personalized budgets that provide visibility and control over their spending—so they can manage their finances confidently while still enjoying the things that matter most?
07
Curating user stories
Curated user stories w.r.t the persona and data gathered from research
08
Prioritizing user stories
I took the curated user stories which were arrived at by analyzing research data, and put them across an impact effort matrix
Chosen user stories to pursue :
"As a cautious spender who fears frivolous spending, I want a simple and intuitive expense tracking feature, so that I can monitor my spending without feeling overwhelmed by complex data."
I want stress-free financial planning tools with calming visuals and gentle reminders so that I can manage my finances without feeling anxious or stressed.
09
Ideation via Information Architecture
From the effort impact matrix, I've finalized the user story for the cautious spender and derived an information architecture that suits the flow for a budgeting app
10
Early Wireframes and low fid prototyping
Following the above information architecture and some reference from budgeting apps I've created some wireframes and prototyping
11
Visual Design and High Fidelity
My initial high fidelity wasn't following current UI standards; therefore, after many design iterations and studying Hinge's design language, I came up with the following screens
12
Next Iteration Considerations
Incorporate Personalized Insights
Add spending trends and suggestions based on past months' data to help users optimize future budgets.Goal-to-Budget Integration
Develop dynamic links between goals and budgets, suggesting automatic reallocation when a user reaches certain milestones (e.g., reducing dining expenses to boost savings)Weekly Budget Check-ins
Offer bite-sized check-ins that suggest adjustments or give a progress summary to keep users engaged without overwhelming them.:
13
Potential Pitfalls
Zero Based budgeting not introduced
Users will still feel confused about the possibility of spending from bank savings and still not affecting the budget.
Emotional Spending Not Fully Addressed:
Users might still prioritize social or impulsive spending, leading to budget deviations.
Final thoughts and summary
As far as simplifying personal finance is considered it’s as follows
Know what your goals are
Keep track of your spending
Optimize your budget
Improve savings and achieve goals faster