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Our Team
Our Team
Connor Callahan
James Hicks
Mindaugas Jefimovas
Sunny Trivedi
Talha Salman
Problem Statement
Problem Statement
People’s personal budgetary habits are not based on financial literacy. Oftentimes, they make the mistake of not only not keeping track of their money, but also spending more than they have.
Users and Tasks
Users and Tasks
Target Users: students and young adults (ages 18-25) just starting their financial journey
Target Users: students and young adults (ages 18-25) just starting their financial journey
Personas:
Personas:
Chris Miller
Chris Miller
Age: 18
Education: High School graduate
Occupation: N/A
Mobile app use: very experienced
Personal: excited to start the next chapter in his life, and wants to gain some independence and leave the house and dorm. He graduated top of his class. He is currently financially unstable, as he relies on allowance from parents and must focus on studies instead of getting a part time job. He wants to pursue other passions--studies usually get in the way. Has big financial goals, does not know how to reach them.
Valentina Rodriguez
Valentina Rodriguez
Age: 20
Education: College Student
Occupation: retail, $10/hr, part-time
Mobile app use: very experienced
Personal: wants to improve her quality of life, manage her work-life balance, and graduate, all while facing a larger than average student debt. Still goes out with her friends on Friday nights. Checks her bank account infrequently. Wants to become an urban architect and planner, and strives to get the best possible grades. She eventually wants to buy a Prius. Wishes she knew how to budget, but does not know where to start.
Stephen Johnson
Stephen Johnson
Age: 22
Education: College graduate
Occupation: corporate, 50k
Mobile app use: very experienced
Personal: wants to maintain good work/social life balance and has a good-paying job, but has to pay off student loan debt. He has many other costs as well with rent, food, utilities, etc. He has advanced experience with technology and with budgets, but thinks budget managing is boring and barely keeps up with it.
Data Collection
Data Collection
Our data was collected through Google Surveys. The full data can be accessed via this link: https://bit.ly/2P0vlU9. From the responses, we gathered invaluable insight about potential users of our app. We then consolidated this information into an affinity diagram, provided below.
Affinity diagram
Affinity diagram
Solution Statement
Solution Statement
Being financially responsible is a crucial skill for people to have, and often the users of all these apps are those with the least financial experience: 18 to 25 year olds. A smartphone app to help track expenses and save money will serve much better than a website due to its ability to access data, its ease of use for the users, and the ability to push notifications when need be.
Brainstorming
Brainstorming
Based on the goal of providing a mobile app that allows users to track and control their spending and budgeting, we came up with a few features that could help achieve this goal. The brainstormed features were as followed:
- spending categorization
- would automatically (with an option of manual input) categorize different spending transactions into specific budgeting categories: groceries, rent, commodities, entertainment, etc. This feature would benefit the user by giving them a nicely organized document for reference, but most importantly the app could use an AI software to learn more about the users spending habits and make suggestions accordingly
- personal price range map
- when opened up, reveals a map that shows all of the restaurants and bars you can spend money at. When you tap on a destination, it gives you a color coded price range, menu, contact information, and split mock bill feature, along with a map of where your friends may have been eating relative to the location on the map
- punishments (absurd idea)
- would resort to punishing you if you failed to meet your budgeting parameters. Sample punishments could include lowering the amount of data on your phone for the month, cancelling your Netflix subscription for the month, freezing your bank account to approved transactions only.
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
Mid-Fidelity Prototype
High-Fidelity Prototype
High-Fidelity Prototype
(Link, in case the embedded link does not work: https://cloud.indigo.design/share/nnzzdwqm6f0a )
Video
Video
(Link, in case the embedded link does not work: https://youtu.be/4O7txCpItCM)
Feedback
Feedback
The main points brought up in the feedback process were the ability to track cash in some capacity to add an x-factor element to our app and increase utility for our users. Another thing brought up was the elimination of a scroll wheel to increase efficiency and usability for the user.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
Working throughout the semester on this project helped to provide real-world-type examples of all of the ideas discussed in class. For example, we learned of some of the ideas surrounding mobile app development include interface strengths (such as the various UI design principles), user interaction strengths (such as understanding the psychology aspect of human-computer interaction), and understanding into how to develop an application (from problem statements all the way through solutions development).
General Usability
General Usability
When analyzing the usability of our app, we asked the main questions of visibility, affordance, and feedback. Based on the respective criteria of each of these areas, we determined that our app can be considered fairly usable. This does not mean that there is not room for improvement, but it does mean that if we have our basics down.
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