SmartSaver

End to End Application

Project Overview

 

Background

SmartSaver is a new innovative app teaching young children how to manage finances. SmartSavers’ main goal is to be used as a helpful tool for parents or teachers to walk alongside a child in saving and spending, building healthy financial habits. This involves planning, thinking, and asking lots of questions.

Problems:

SmartSaver is a new app and has not had a long history or many competitors. It can be challenging for parents or teachers to trust and learn how SmartSaver works.

Scope: End to end application

Software: Figma

Role: UX/product designer (Research, Visual Design, Interaction Design, User Testing)

Design Process

Research

Research Goal

  • Identify the audience: both adults and children

  • Define and empathize with users: user friendly user flows and gaining trust

  • Ideate and conduct surveys to receive feedback from participants, group critique, and mentor’s comments

 

Competitive Analysis

 

User Persona

 

Primary Research

The primary research was conducted using a survey method. I asked parents and young professionals to fill out the survey. The users expressed interest in the idea of saving at a young age and recording the miscellaneous income as a child. The findings confirmed the interest and excitement for the developing of this app for families and future potential institutions.

User Interview Summary

  • 4 Participants

  • 8 questions

  • Age: 22-36 years old

Helpful Findings

All participants think it is a great idea to incorporate technology into education at home especially subject that may not be taught at school. Saving is something one learns overtime and by practice. SmartSaver will become a good tool for parents and teachers to teach children how to save, spend, and set a weekly financial goal.

Problem Statement:

Users are indifferent about whether or not they would need an app to teach their kids financial responsibility due to lack of competitors or familiarity.

Define

Project Goals

After conducting a survey, we decided to take users’ feedback and interests as primary goals in setting the technical and business goals. We don’t necessarily have a direct competitor that does exactly what SmartSaver intends to do which presents both benefits and challenges. Our overall goal is to create a safe learning experience for young kids who are interested in financial responsibility.

Ideate

  • Task Flow

  • User Flow

  • Wireframes

  • UI Kit

 

Task Flows

 

User Flows

Sketch Wireframes

 

Mid-Fi Wireframes

 

Hi-Fi Wireframes

 

UI Kit

Usability Test

Process

I invited participants to test SmartSaver’s app and its usability. Everyone was given a link to the prototype. They gave me feedback on what they think, feel, and experience by filing out a few questions. I followed up with the participants to answer some questions they had.

Objectives

To find out how the app could improve from their perspectives as parents and young professional such as teachers to be most effective for their needs.

Findings

Participants feel that the overall design and flow of the UX is easy to navigate, user-friendly, and exciting. Participants offers many good comments for the future next steps if SmartSaver is being developed further. About half of the participants have questions concerning the connection between a bank and the app due to lack of context. The questions have been answered in person/via phone call that the app will be used as a tool and will not be associated with any financial institutions at this time. Overall, this app will be a good option for parents and children and will continue to take the feedback to improve this app in the future. 

  • Ben

    “The goal setting was a little hard to understand, from a data perspective. Maybe that's just a limitation of it being a prototype, and not fully flushed out.”

  • Deborah

    “Loved the look of the app! Great way to also teach children how to manage their funds, set goals and also learn how to use different sources of funding!”

  • John

    “The overall flows are easy to follow. In its current state, both parent and saver will be able to carry out what they want to do but there I think there can be improvements made to make the flows smoother and with less confusion to make it a seamless process.”

  • Scott

    “I think this is a good closed loop app that would work well for the parents and the kiddo. I believe having the child understand how they went from $0 to $50 and then back to $5 when they were trying to save for a larger item could be very education in the understanding of the value of money.”

Prototype