Pinch

Designing and writing for a digital personal finance tool

Personal finance tool (concept & design)

Project

Sole UI/UX Designer and UX Writer

Role

3 weeks

Timeline

Research & Problem Discovery

Competitor Analysis

In order to understand the problem space, I decided to do generative research focusing on existing personal finance products.

In targeting leading products in the fintech space, I wanted to identify competitors’ strengths and generate ideas for possible features that could make my app concept unique.

I was especially interested in how each app attempted to help users stay on budget and manage their finances.

Monarch

• Rating of 4.8 on App Store, 4.6 on Google Play

“Advice wizard” asks users personalized questions to help them prioritize financial goals

Mint

• #1 most downloaded finance app (based on all-time app downloads)

Mint recommends budgets based on user activity and uses motivational language when users stay on budget

You Need a Budget

• Rating of 4.8 on App Store, 4.1 on Google Play

You Need a Budget offers flexible budgets so users can cover their costs after overspending.

These features appeared to make it easy for users to customize their budgets and goals, but I wondered how a finance tool could help users get to the root of the problem of overspending.

Desk Research

I decided to do secondary research to answer the following questions:
• Why do people have trouble saving money?
• What is the impact of financial stress?

A significant number of people worldwide are living paycheck to paycheck

• In the US, a December 2021 survey by PYMNTS and LendingClub found that 61% of the 3,000 participants were living paycheck to paycheck.
• According to the Global Benefits Attitudes Survey (October 2020), “over a third of employees globally report that they are living paycheck to paycheck, using most or all of their monthly income for expenses with nothing left in savings.”

Financial stress is taking a toll

Results of a CreditWise survey by Capital One (July 2021) found that “finances are the number-one cause of stress [for Americans] (73%) — more than politics (59%), work (49%) and family (46%).”

The impacts of financial stress can be deadly

In February 2022, JAMA Internal Medicine found that the likelihood of death in the months following a heart attack is correlative with levels of financial stress:

  • 17% of heart attack sufferers who reported "severe financial strain” died within 6 months of being discharged.

  • 7% of heart attack sufferers who "had more than enough money to make ends meet each month" died within 6 months of being discharged.

Key Feature: Budget Assistance

Based on these findings, I saw an opportunity for Pinch to distinguish itself from other apps by:

  • Acknowledging financial issues that may be beyond users’ control

  • Helping users understand their financial obstacles in a broader context

Budget Assistance

  • Asks users about their individual financial obstacles

  • Provides insights regarding personal spending & finance trends from the user’s local area

  • Offers app suggestions and educational resources to help users overcome their financial struggles

Low-Fidelity Sketches: Budget Assistance Flow

Version 1

Version 2

After gathering feedback on my first low-fidelity designs (Version 1), I realized that I would need to make some changes and create some context around Budget Assistance to introduce it to users effectively.

  • “Help with staying on budget” is too long of a CTA, and it wouldn’t effectively tell users what to expect when entering the Budget Assistance flow

    • In Version 2, I changed the CTA button text to “Budget Assistance” to more accurately reflect the user’s next steps

  • Budget Assistance could be an exciting feature for users as well as for the business model, providing opportunities for building revenue streams through partnerships with other apps. However, without a proper introduction, users wouldn’t be able to understand why they should use it or how it could help them.

    • In Version 2, I created a new screen to introduce Budget Assistance and included an attention-grabbing heading that would help the user feel supported (not judged) for going over their budget.

Mid-Fidelity Prototype

After designing the wireframes, I created a mid-fidelity prototype and conducted user testing by observing users’ behavior and taking notes on their comments as they completed the following tasks:

  • Log in to view Dashboard

  • View budget information

  • Complete Budget Assistance flow

User Comments

  • “Everything is organized logically.”

  • “The dashboard shows me the most important information first, it reminds me of apps I already use.”

  • “The language in Budget Assistance is supportive and reassuring.”

Final Designs & UX Writing

Next steps & future considerations

If I were to do this project again, I would incorporate additional methods into the research and discovery phases. Conversation mining would help me discover and identify patterns regarding how users of financial apps describe their experiences and pain points. User interviews would shed more light on how individuals feel about their finances and how they use finance tools.

Future testing and analysis (quantitative and qualitative) would help me validate and evaluate the success of my writing and design choices. A/B Tests would help me test and measure the success of individual wording choices. Observed task completion tests would also allow me to gather data on how users interact with the interface, as well as their impressions of various phrasing and wording choices.

Next

Amano