Creating an app that makes saving money just as fun as spending it

The Project Process

Role: Sole Designer

Timeline: 5 weeks

Tools: Figma

Research

  • Statistical Data

  • Competitive Analysis

  • User Interviews

Define

  • Affinity Mapping

  • User Personas

  • Feature Roadmapping

  • User Flows

  • Sitemapping

Design

  • Low-Fidelity Wireframes

  • Branding

  • High-Fidelity Wireframes

Test

  • Prototyping

  • Usability Testing

Problem

Young adults have trouble setting money aside for savings goals

As of 2023, the median savings account in the US has just $1200. Of those being surveyed, 41% of people had less than $500 in their savings. How can we engage these people into making saving just as fun as spending?

Solution

Take the hassle of saving out of the user’s hands with group accountability and rewarding checkpoints

Make the pledge

  • Pledge how much you’d like the save

  • Pick your timeline

  • Automatic daily deposits help you get there without having to lift a finger

Save with friends

  • Achieve common savings goals together

  • Hold each other accountable

  • Camaraderie enhances motivation

Have some fun

  • Gain badges for savings streaks and goals

  • Checkpoints keep you engaged throughout the journey

  • Completing a goal feels more rewarding than it would through a traditional banking app

Research

63% of working people are unable to cover an unexpected $500 expense

While this may be due mostly in part to financial pressures and rising cost of living, are there any non-financial factors that could be contributing to this problem?

Competitor Analysis

No other service offers new or alternative ways of saving, and any sort of fun to be had is severely lacking

Interview Research Goals

  • How do people save their money?

  • What do people who are good at saving their money do that people who aren’t do not?

  • Are there any non-financial factors that prevent people from saving money?

Key Insights

  • If saving was more fun, there would be more incentive to do it

  • Money that doesn’t get put somewhere else gets spent regardless of amount

  • Personal accountability is hard when it comes to keeping your hands out of your own pockets

  • Saving with others can help accountability and motivation to save

  • The best savers have it all automated

How might we encourage users to save money in a way that increases both accountability and motivation?

Define

User Personas

Make saving easier for the non-saver and exciting for the regular saver

Ensuring usefulness for both good savers and bad savers allows the product to cover the whole spectrum of users and increases possible use cases.

Feature Roadmap

Saving with a group toward a common goal can increase accountability of every user in the group

Not only is saving to go on a trip with your friends fun, it is proven to be more effective. Committing to a goal with another person increases the likelihood of that goal being achieved by 65%.

User Flow

Making the task of creating a savings goal as simple as possible leads to the creation of more goals

And once a goal is started, there is more motivation to finish it.

Sitemap

Keeping the information architecture straightforward allows for better focus on the main issue of saving money

Staying focused on creating a tool for the users to do one thing very effectively keeps the project streamlined and helps get the MVP out to the market quicker.

Design

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

Gamifying aspects to saving can help users stay motivated toward their goals

Adding game features can be the perfect solution to help make savings more fun. Game-like features can increase engagement by up to 90%. That means users can stay motivated toward their goals while the automated saving deposits does all the hard work for them.

Branding

Color Palette

Typography

The branding elements need to help the product to feel more fun and exciting than your traditional banking app

The rounded, colorful, lively imagery helps brighten certain pages of the app, complimenting the rounded, laidback nature of the word mark. The simpler sans serif font choice won’t clash for the users attention with the more visually exciting elements on the screen.

  • Blue represents dependability and calmness

  • Green represents growth and prosperity

  • Red represents passion and excitement

High-Fidelity Wireframes

Saving money takes time, so the design must adapt as time goes by

Creating wireframes for the user along different periods in the savings journey helped to gauge what functions and features were necessary for every step of the way. Ensuring that the gaming features felt both intuitive and rewarding was made much easier by designing for every step of that savings process.

Test

Prototype

Users need to feel the excitement of achieving a savings goal

Usability testing proved effective at ensuring features on the app felt intuitive to users. Task completion was a full 100% and post-task satisfaction ranked at 95% overall.

Every participant claimed the “Goal completion” screen was their favorite, many saying they would use the app purely for the satisfaction of getting to that screen.

Iterations

Based on user data and feedback from the usability tests, these were the necessary changes to improve the overall experience.

  • Increased the sizing of percentage markers on goal confirmation page and added percentage markers on goal check-in page to help establish and reinforce the meaning of each percentage checkpoint for the user

  • Added a tappable info card to explain what each achievement badge means so the user has an understanding of these elements off the bat instead of only being educated after completing a savings goal

  • Added icons that match the fun, lighthearted tone of the app, to help lessen text fatigue over this category selection, as well as give more character to each of the savings goal choices

  • Shifted the checkbox icon to the left to enable people using the Tab button or other accessibility tool to more quickly access it, as well as give the checkbox itself more of a natural visual hierarchy

Conclusion

I found this project enriching because of how the problem applied to nearly everyone. Saving money is a universal issue, so unpacking that broad issue into a more refined problem that could be fixed more easily was extremely rewarding. Coming up with “game-like” features was very exciting and forced me to think about the concept of saving from a novel, unique perspective.

If I were to do this project again, I would devote more time developing the group saving feature to allow for more interaction between group members, such as chats, emojis, or reminders to send each other. I would also devote more time to creating animations for interactable elements, especially goal completion elements, to help enhance the joy and excitement of completing a goal.