UX Designer / Boston, MA
FinancePal App
Masters Thesis Project
Tools Used
SurveyMonkey
Google Sheets
Balsamiq Wireframes
Canva
Adobe Xd
Design Process
This project was part of my graduate coursework at Northeastern University, and undertaken for educational purposes only. Any brand names used are property of that brand.
In this 12-week thesis project for my graduate degree at Northeastern, I designed a financial management app targeted at the college-age to young professional audience. In school, students are rarely - if ever - taught how to manage their finances. This can result in a lot of anxiety centered around money as they become young adults and start to take control of their own finances. This app aims to fill this gap and assist college-age/young professional individuals in personal financial management.
Comparative Research
I conducted comparative research by looking at existing apps in the financial management space.
Survey
To gather some more details about the target user group/audience for my app, I decided to develop a survey. I formulated 8 questions, then uploaded my survey to the SurveyMonkey site in order to distribute it.
To recruit participants for my survey, I utilized social media. I reached out to my college sorority Facebook group, alumni Facebook group, and posted on my personal social media accounts. I received 54 survey responses, and then followed up with 5 people to schedule user research interviews.
Interviews
The purpose of conducting interviews was to get to know my hypothetical potential customer base, get an idea of how they currently manage their money, and any pain points they may have. Below is the email I sent to the interviewees before the interviews, and then the script I used for the actual interviews.
Below is a summary of my takeaways from each interview.
Personas, Scenarios & Low-Fidelity Wireframes
Based upon the knowledge gathered from my interviews, I created two main personas and several scenarios. I then began the wireframing process, drawing low-fidelity wireframes by hand as well as in Balsamiq.
Prototyping & Usability Testing
After wireframing, I moved on to higher fidelity designs in Adobe Xd. As I began the designs, I also developed my stylesheet, which is shown below. The brand identity aim was to be friendly, approachable, and youthful.
I iterated the designs based on instructor feedback, peer feedback, and usability testing feedback. The final result - an interactive, clickable prototype - can be viewed by clicking the button below.