User Experience Professional
Project Scope
Role: UX Researcher
Client: n/a
Project type: SaaS feature
Project length: 4 days
My contribution: Research Plan, Secondary Research, In-depth Interviews, Proto-Persona, Usability Testing; Presentation
Tools: Figma, Google Workspace, Slack
Budget Buddy Online Banking Feature
General Assembly Financial Hackathon
Prompt: Develop a user-friendly mobile or web application that helps individuals manage their personal finances effectively. Features may include expense tracking, budgeting, goal setting, and financial data visualization.
The design and engineering teams needed evidence-based direction to develop an effective financial planning tool.
Goal: (1) Discover how users can utilize budgeting software to improve their financial well-being, and (2) identify common challenges in using digital budgeting tools.
Result: Budget Buddy - a SaaS feature integrated into an online banking suite of services enabling users to directly link their income and spending habits.
Impact: Research insights went against prompt requirements, requiring a shift to a SaaS feature within an existing banking app. Selecting diverse testing participants encouraged later iterations to employ universal design best practices. (Jump to section.)
GOALS
What we aim to contribute:
Design Research Goals
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Identify common challenges faced using digital budgeting tools.
Generative Research Goals
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Discover how users utilize budgeting software to improve their financial well-being.
RESEARCH
Secondary Research
A 2023 online survey of 2,000 U.S. adults found that nearly three-quarters (74%) of Americans have a monthly budget. However, 84% of Americans with a monthly budget report that they sometimes exceed that budget (Nerdwallet, accessed August 14, 2023).
In-Depth Interviews
After I drafted a discussion guide, we held four (4) interviews with participants who use financial software to monitor their financial health.
Unfortunately, my partner did not record her interviews, leaving us dependent on her notes and memory. So, we chose to review the highlights of all four interviews to uncover commonalities. I used this information to construct a proto-persona.
Meet Avery.
Crucial Insight
Users want their mobile banking app to help with their budgeting. Most interviewees consolidated their finances into one tool or account, citing organization and ease of use. They do not want another app. However, most prefer their primary banking tool to help them budget their finances. Some reasons interviewees provided included security, importing sensitive financial data, and convenience.
Challenges
On Day 2 of the hackathon, five team members - two data scientists, an engineer, and two UX designers - quit the hackathon. Short-staffed, the two remaining members (engineers) and I coordinated with the hackathon organizers to rebuild our team. By the end of the second of four days, we welcomed two engineers and a UX/UI designer.
Additionally, it was clear from the research that building a new mobile or web app would not solve users' problems despite the hackathon remit. Creating a budgeting feature within an existing mobile app was an obvious solution; nevertheless, it was up to me to persuade my teammates that this was a worthy direction.
DESIGN
Creating a solution statement
To address our users' needs, the (new!) UX designer and I workshopped several solution statements until we arrived at the statement below, which guided the designer's wireframing and prototyping:
Avery needs a new budgeting feature that allows her to set and edit her monthly budget on her bank’s online banking tools so that she can feel confident about her spending.
TESTING
Comprehending the tool's capabilities
Five (5) participants tested my team's prototype in medium fidelity. I crafted a usability test guide to determine whether users could:
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Set a spending limit of $250 on streaming services and
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Determine which category they overspent this month.
Users should be able to complete tasks in under 30 seconds and with 100% accuracy.
Three of the five users took longer to realize the "Bills" page was the first of several categories in which users could edit a budget should they tap the "Next" button. To address this problem, the team designer included an onboarding page to provide a "table of contents" explaining how to begin interacting with the feature.
Usability Test Results
Participants also provided great feedback that would improve the tool's high-fidelity iterations, including:
"I don't understand the negatives [in the Remain column]. Did someone give me money?"
"I thought it was intuitive. Like, it was easy to use."
"The small pictures [icons] and boxes [text fields] are hard for me to touch." - an elderly participant
PROTOTYPE
Balance Avery's budget!
Click through the New Leaf prototype and view the budgeting tool, Budget Buddy, to help Avery gain control of her budget.
RESEARCH IMPACT
Meeting users where they are
Strategic Impact
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Pivoting from a web or mobile app to a SaaS tool backed by research insights.
Product Impact
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Strategically selecting diverse participants for our mid-fidelity usability test reminded the designer to consider Universal Design principles.
"If my bank [app] looked like this, I would actually pay attention to my finances more." - usability test participant
WHY IT MATTERS
Addressing the problem
"[The] financial hardships that low and middle-income families are struggling with can't simply be addressed with a budget" (CNBC, accessed August 14, 2023).
There is no one simple "hack" that will solve why so many people struggle with budgeting. Sobering as this may be, what we can do - what we must do - is acknowledge what has been working for people, recognize what satisfies their needs, and build solutions that adapt to their realities. We believe tools like New Leaf's Budget Buddy, Bank of America's Budgeting & Spending, and Chase's Budget allow users to control their finances more.
NEXT STEPS
Maintain momentum
Were my team to have more resources, we would like to perform the following steps to improve New Leaf's Budget Buddy:
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Test high-fidelity iterations. Record reactions to the new onboarding page and ensure button target and text fields are accessible for users with fine motor impairments.
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Integrate better budgeting habits. Introduce the ability for Budget Buddy to provide recommendations to improve customers' spending.
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Interface with live data. Connect with a banking institution's API for real-time and accurate transaction records.