Money
Coach

UX Research & Design
UI Design

Role

UX & UI Designer

Money Coach is an app designed to help Millennials gain financial literacy skills, and to teach them how to plan and build towards a successful financial future. This project was researched, designed, and built by me, as part of a year-long UX bootcamp with Springboard.

Contact

Project
Overview

I’m a Millennial, and many (not so young anymore) people in my generation have personal aspirations to save for a house, save for retirement, for a trip, or a business idea. But often, Millennials feel their financial goals are out of reach. Was it because we splurged on too much avocado toast?

Many millennials (approximately between the ages of 27 - 42) do not have a good grasp on their own personal finances - they don’t know how to save, how to establish and plan for financial goals, or how to put their savings to work to build earnings over time. And on top of that, many are dealing with student debt, credit card debt, and mortgages.

There’s all kinds of budgeting apps and financial advice out there (books, blogs, gurus), but knowing what actions are right for your specific financial situation can feel like a mystery. And many millennials do not know who or where to turn to for sound financial advice that’s affordable, trustworthy and independent.

*This project is a spec project, that was researched, designed, and built as part of my final project for a year-long UX Design bootcamp with Springboard.

Problem Statement

How might we use technology to help people make better personal financial decisions and help them achieve their financial goals? As well, how can we teach people (give them the tools, resources, and confidence) to invest their own money?

How can we make the process of seeking financial advice unintimidating, accessible and affordable? And further, how can we help provide them with a sense of accountability in their personal finances?

My Role

UX Researcher
UX + UI Designer

Research

Research Objective

Through this research study, I wanted to understand how Millennials can improve the management of their finances, and understand where and how they seek financial advice when they need it, if at all.

Research Methodologies

Secondary Research (Qualitative): To understand the broader landscape and competitive market, as well as understand the audience’s context and mindset at a more global, generational level.

Survey (Quantitative): To confirm or deny basic assumptions of the study regarding financial literacy and management

User Interviews (Qualitative): To understand the audience’s needs, desires and pain points when it comes to managing their personal finances.

Usability Testing (Qualitative): To validate project concepts and test low and high fidelity prototypes.

Participants:

Ages: 24-39
Own a smartphone
Have used an app based service before
Have at least one credit card and/or one loan (student, personal, home, or car)
Annual Income: Above $50,000

"Underlying Gen Y financial decision making is a generally low level of financial literacy, which is not surprising given that most have not received any form of financial education."
-Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center

Secondary Research Summary

Millennials have received low levels of financial education and tend to have low financial literacy, compared to other generations. Although some sources seem to indicate that Millennials have higher confidence in their financial literacy, despite that fact.
Many are not satisfied with their current financial situation and tend to be financially fragile (cannot weather unexpected financial needs).
Millennials desire financial independence and security (and the spending spontaneity that can come with financial security) and home ownership.
Few Millennials have sought financial advice from a professional.

Survey

I conducted a survey among my key audience group to better understand their relationship with personal finance, from a quantitative perspective. The survey also acted as a screener to identify participants in the following qualitative phase of the study, user interviews.

User Interviews

The primary qualitative apportion of my user research entailed user interviews. From the surveys, I selected 10 participants to interview, who represented a broad range of perspectives and financial backgrounds.

My goal with the user interviews was to understand these users’ specific experiences in order to broadly answer these types of questions:

What methods are Millennials currently using to manage their finances and debts?
What causes low financial literacy and poor financial management in Millennials?
What are the barriers or missing pieces to successful financial management for this group? What information, resources, or tools do they need to succeed, but don’t have access to?
Where or who do Millennials turn to when they have big financial questions? How do they seek counsel in order to solve their problems or meet their financial goals, if at all?

Research: Key Takeaways

Ultimately, the two key pieces of information I learned from this process were:

Some people desire basic, beginner-level financial education in a range of topics. Those people also would like and would benefit from some level of accountability.
Others that are more experienced in budgeting and saving, rather than accountability and intro-level education, want more in-depth education and more specifically advice on how to invest their money on their own, as well as learn about the financial tools that will help set themselves up for future financial success.

USER
INTERVIEWS

“I don’t like thinking about money. It stresses me out. I don’t understand it. I have a very adverse feeling towards it. I think part of it is just a general lack of education in using it.”
-User Interviewee

“I took a couple finance classes because of my college major, but never learned anything practical or personal. More theoretical models, etc. I never learned anything that truly applied to how I would manage my personal finances.”
-User Interviewee

“I need to have an actual coach to hold me accountable. I need a third party person to tell me what to do.”
-User Interviewee

The User

Based on the research phase of work, I mapped out the characteristics, behaviors, needs and desires of the broad range of users, using the affinity mapping technique to help bring into focus clear user personas for the project.

Empathy Mapping

The next step I took was to create an empathy map to help step into the shoes of my target users and understand how they think, feel, and act. The purpose of this tool is to help us comprehend their perceptions, motivations, and behaviors that ultimately drive their decisions.

Personas

Next, I created personas, based on my research to represent the two core user types. Creating personas helped me to better understand my users’ needs, experiences, behaviors and goals, and to help me specifically identify the user I’d be designing for.

Developing
the Structure

Information Architecture & User Flows

Next, I drafted the Information Architecture for our app - creating various topic areas to match the users’ broad scope of needs, as well as to meet our own stated project objectives.

Then, I created User Flows for the the most primary user actions to understand how a user might navigate through the various areas of the app in order to accomplish certain tasks, such as getting matched with a Financial Advisor, setting up a meeting with their new Financial Advisor, or accessing our library of financial literacy education materials.

Sketching & Wireframes

In the next step of the design process, I sketched out the core areas of the mobile app, using pen and paper to first explore possible ideas. Next, I created a comprehensive set of wireframes to map out all of the various mobile app screens. The wireframes are meant to represent the skeleton UI and help explore how core functionality will occur and how I intend the user to interact with every screen.

UI Design

Key
Take
Aways

The in-depth research phase of this project helped me understand the wide range of financial literacy levels and the real variety of financial goals for Millennials. But no matter who they are or where they are in the personal finance journey, most Millennials…

Want to learn more and gain more skills when it comes to personal finance, no matter how beginner or advanced they may be.
Want easy access to trustworthy sources of financial advice.

With the design and build of Money Coach, my goal was to create a way to democratize access to financial advice for all situations and people, and make the process of seeking out that advice nearly frictionless. I also wanted to provide Millennials with easy-to-digest, easy-to-follow resources, roadmaps, and tools to help them improve their own financial literacy and skills. With these dual objectives, my hope is to create a place where we can all use knowledge to take some of the power over our futures into our own hands, and learn how to set ourselves up for financial success.