by anuja singhal -...
TRANSCRIPT
THE BUD APP - UX CASE STUDYBY ANUJA SINGHAL
THE BUD APP
What is it?
Personal money management is a good habit. We all can safely agree to this statement now that we are all adults with
full-time jobs and money-related obligations that we need to fulfill. However, money management doesn’t come easy and
very few of us are able to achieve their saving goals. Could the journey from being young and careless (about money) to
suddenly growing up to be matured and responsible, be made seamless? What if we found a real incentive in developing a
habit of managing our funds at an early age?
A small user-research conducted on college students, 18-22 years old, revealed some interesting insights to what their
current behavior towards money is. Most students realize the importance of personal money management, but are too busy,
lazy or bored to do it regularly. They believe they don’t earn enough to save, and hence don’t need to have an elaborate
written account of their earnings and expenses. Most of them practice a very high-level, even ‘mental’ budgeting plan. Even
after which, they are hardly able to save anything substantial.
This project aims at developing an app that can motivate these college students to feel responsible towards developing
personal money management skills, despite the lack of time and motivation to do it.
THE BUD APP
Problem Statement
College Students think it’s really important to manage
their personal finances in order to keep up with their lifestyle
and save up for their short-term goals.
But many of them don’t feel motivated enough to find time
to do it. They also think it’s boring and almost
redundant with their limited income.
THE BUD APP
User Persona
Lorrie Hutchinson
“Thinking about money, in general, causes me a lot of anxiety.
Age : 19 yrs
College : Under-grad at NYU
She uses her debit card that is linked to herparent’s account, for making purchases.
She jumps on offers and deals that she canavail without having to spend any money at all.
She may be really social, but she doesn’t discuss
She usually writes down her major upcoming expenses and communicates them to herparents to get funded.
and she hasn’t thought of using an app before.
She checks her bank account almost daily to
Thinking about money, in general, is stressful.
without spending for a few days.
Behavior : Scenario :
Spending habits :
Goals & Needs :
room. She has a ton of friends and shares almost everything with
Summer is around the corner and she wants to plan a hiking trip with her friends. She wants to buy herself some good quality, outdoorsy clothes and gear. She recently spent a lot of her savings in buying clothes that ‘she didn’t really need’ and now is running short on dough.
not study related. She knows she has to start saving before summer arrives.
room. She has a ton of friends and shares almost everything
Summer is around the corner and she wants to plan a hiking trip with her friends. She wants to buy herself some good quality, outdoorsy clothes and gear. She recently spent a lot of her savings in buying clothes that ‘she didn’t really need’ and now is running short on dough.
not study related. She knows she has to start saving before summer arrives.
Source of income
Need to manage funds
Current money mgt. skills
1 02 3 4 5
Coffee, Food, Clothing/Accessories, Events, Study Material
Devices :
I-Phone 4 (Old and cracked)
THE BUD APP
Understandinguser needs
USER PAIN POINTS
Bad Interface
BoringNot enough earnings
Lazy
Lack of responsibilityBusy Lifestyle
Procrastination
Forgetfulness
No visible savings/outcomeNo patience for regular inputs
“What they say..”
USER NEEDS:
Approachability
Rewarding Limited Automation
Seamless integrationinto lifestyle
Engaging
Based on the pain points, the proposed
solution needs to be Engaging, Rewarding,
Approachable, Relatable and needs to be
integrated seamlessly in the life of the user,
giving him limited control over the whole
process. These needs can be tackled by
making the application –
Personalized & Approachable - through
characterization, customization and avatars
Relatable - through language and visuals
Rewarding - through initializing some kind of
an instant reward system, like brownie points.
This needs to be balanced with some kind of a
‘penalizing’ element too. Also keeping levels of
achievement can be quite motivating.
mobile app.)
And finally, Engaging – by creating a virtual,
real-time game play that can be integrated
with social media.
THE BUD APP
Competitive Assessment
THE BUD APP
Card-SortingThis exercise involved making a list of
features for the app and having some
users sort them under categories they
feel sound the most appropriate.
This helped me design a more
user-friendly flow of information in
accordance to what the users feel.
THE BUD APP
User Flow
OPEN APP
Are youa new user?
Ready tolink youraccount?
Want toskip theintro?
Do you wantto know
how the appworks?
SIGN IN
USER PROFILE
SIGN OUT SOCIAL
SIGN UPAbout Bud Tracker(Visual Slideshow)
Define/Edit Limit,Goals & Avatar
SIGN UP FORM
Y
N
N
N
Y
Y
Y
Verify
Enter Passcode
TRACKER
ACTION POINTS
CHECK/EDITSETTINGS
HELP
SIGN
OU
T PA
TH
SHARE WITH FRIENDS
VISUAL SLIDESHOW
FAQ’S
REVIEWS
CREDIBILITY
PRIVACY & TERMS OF USE
CONTACT
THE BUD APP
Paper Prototype
THE BUD APP
Prototyping-Phase 1
HOME HOW IT WORKS SIGN UP LINK YOUR ACCOUNT DEFINE LIMIT, GOALS AND AVATAR
THE BUD APP
Prototyping-Phase 1
COMPLETE SETTINGS
TRACKER FLYOUT MENU USER PROFILE POP-UP REMINDERS/ALERTS
The creation of the first prototype was followed by some user
testing. This exercise was carried out at Starbucks in the NYU
campus. I went around giving away $5 gift cards to students who
fit in the demographic and were willing to give me an hour of their
time in return. The response was overwhelming (as opposed to
what I expected.) This exercise not only gave me some insight into
how the user would interact with my app, but also some ideas
about how to make this app ‘sticky’.
Besides tweaking the general user flow of the app as well as the
interface, I am now considering integrating certain features which I
had not thought of in the beginning on the process. Some of the
primary feedback involved the following -
1. Make the interface larger with more clickable real-estate.
2. Social media needs to be more about sharing goals rather than
sharing actual numbers.
3. The tracker needs to be more of a game, with passive interaction
rather than no interaction at all.
4. Integrate trend analysis and recommendation engine.
THE BUD APP
User-testing & results
"I don’t want toshare my money related
statistics with my friends”
“It doesn’t look like a‘business like-budgeting tool’
“Why is itasking me for so
much information?”
"I want to know howphysically tangible/
accessible thosesavings are..”
THE BUD APP
Prototyping-Phase 2
http://iaq67d.axshare.com/home.html
Enter the following link in your browser to see
the updated version of the prototype based on
the user testing feedback -
THE BUD APP
Next StepsAfter a conducting one more round of user-testing, I feel confident
enough to start the designing process of the app.
*Please note that the characters that you see as Bud Avataars in
the presentation are not designed for this app and are borrowed
from an illustrator. The avataars will be designed in accordance to
the app’s interface design requirements after the prototyping phase
is over.
Here are some of the considerations I have for the next round of
prototyping -
1. Improvise the tracker interface design to maximise user
engagement & real-time rewarding system
2. Incorporate friendly trend analysis and recommendation plug-ins
3. Make the user-flow as seamless and intuitive as possible.
