content draft

Case study title: Penny party

Project overview

The product

Project duration

Picture preview

The problem

The goal

My role

Responsibilities

Understanding the user

User research

Summary

Write a short paragraph describing your user research.

This can include the type of research you conducted, assumptions that you made going into the research, and how your assumptions changed after conducting research.

I conducted interviews with three friends who regularly manage household budgets and save for vacations.

Initially, I assumed users needed tools for precise tracking and organization, expecting each group member to put in equivalent effort to keep comprehensive records of their spending. However, the research revealed that this is a tedious task, and many people struggle to do so, leading to miscalculations in the group budgets. Specific challenges include difficulties in recording small expenses, reading financial data, and making informed budget decisions. This shifted my perspective, highlighting the importance of addressing the need for motivation. When users lack the motivation to stick to the budget, they won’t actively engage in group budgeting plans, negatively impacting the overall experience for all group members who are financially connected.

Painpoints

Budget management and financial literacy,Lack of transparency and communication,Goal setting and progress tracking,Expense splitting

Challenges in sticking to a budget.

Difficulty in tracking spending and identifying areas to cut back.

Lack of knowledge about budgeting and saving strategies.

Accessibility issues for those who struggles to understand financial data.

Difficulty in tracking who has paid for what.

Miscommunication about expenses and contributions.

Concerns about sharing financial information with others.

Lack of clear goals or motivation to save.

Difficulty in tracking progress towards common goals.

Disputes over how to fairly split expenses

Complications with varying incomes and financial contributions.

Personas

Persona: Mark

Mark is a disorganized freelancer who needs a straightforward and socially engaging budgeting tool because he struggles with maintaining records and sticking to the plan.

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Persona: Emily

Emily is a meticulous and family-oriented software developer who needs a comprehensive and collaborative budgeting tool because she wants to plan for future household expenses with her fiancé.

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User journey maps

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Starting the design

Paper wireframes

goal is to provide a main interface that user can access different features of the app, at the same time help them form good habits: break down big into small actions

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Digital wireframes

list the big goal on the top, break it down to actionable steps below

change budget to event based, group different small actions into plannings towards one big goal

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invite friends into the saving circle, allow friends to share and invite people into plans

have a spendable balance that allow user view where they have spent their money, so help them better allocate money into plans or adjust plannings

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use friends as a encourangment and motivating methods. allow people see their friends saving activities and motivates each other

for every detailed event, use blocks to represent different category, organization and folders of differnt planning actions. for each actions, use variations to allow flexible planning. so user won’t need to settle on one plan but can keep editing

share the blocks with friends and encourge group invovlners to chat and discuss under each planning activiteis

provide a summary of money after split below to help planning group activities

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allow user to create new notes as quick notes or quick record spendings due to the flexibility of money spending and lots of small transactions are maded in a short time. this can encourage users to keep recording small expense, make the process easier,reduce the stress of trivia

Low-fi prototype

prototype gif

user flow description:

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Usability studies

Introduction

round1: I invite 3 people and mainly did … (research plan)

round2:better version (the better gif)

Findings

(research plan)

round1: the result of the lofi testing

round2 the improved result of the midfi testing

(the testing details can be another page to include all details)

Refining the design

Mockups

add the money assigment into the page, split budgets into recurrent payments and future plannings and use color to seperate, provide overview and detailed view, make two types of project more uniform in shape

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remove the confusing button on the bottom left, make main action button more visible, reduce redundant functions such as chat

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make the goal on the top and make it wider and more visible

remove the confusing plans, today and all and make them all together into today’s challenge

combine incoming charges and budget progress into one, but seperate daily charges and planning items by colors

remove the diagonal arrow that is confusing

navigator bar add icons for better identification

make home screen more clean and lean

adjust the IA and the navigator menu items to make the home screen its original function: having a grasp of all infomration but without the function of edditing

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remain a consistent color coding for planning items and bills

remove the edit status so user can edit directly on the page

give an overview on the begining but provide the function of unfold and folded

make variations more visible like a button

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High-fi prototype

gif/video

Accessibility

Going forward

Takeways

Next steps