Easy 0
Budgeting App
Role and Project Goal
My Goal in creating and designing this app was to create a way for anyone with financial goals to set up a 0 based budget and tracking system without the tediousness and time consuming process of inputting every transaction. This included business owners and users that had savings goals.
Challenges I ran into
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Scheduling Usability Studies
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Shrinking complex data to fit cleanly on mobile devices
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Clarifying feedback from users who weren't "tech" or "financially" savvy
Foundational Research
I began by interviewing a number of people in my personal network to see where the pain points where when it came to them procrastinating or avoiding budgeting or taxes. I interviewed different people in different life situations from business owners to single mothers. I then used an empathy map to organize a lot of the feed back I received. The common themes included users not wanting to input the data for the budgets as well as how much time they said it would normally take them from not only inputting data but also organizing it. I interviewed different people in different life situations from business owners to single mothers.
Ideation
After thinking through a number of ideas, the thought that I decided on was an app where the user could connect to their bank account The app will then categorize each transaction based on a recommended portion of the overall budget and not only display the remaining amount for the month for each category but also be able to export the past budgeting data into a spreadsheet instead of the user having to input every transaction. In addition to this, due to it handling financial data I wanted to make sure that the data was secure. At the start of the app, it will have you create an account and connect your bank account. The app will utilize password, routing and account information in order to be authorized by the bank account. Once it has successfully authorized the account you will be brought to a home screen that will show you the remaining amount of money in the current month for each category. The user can then navigate to a page that shows how much has been spent over the past month or another page that shows how much has been spent in the last year. On the page showing past spending across the year the user will have the option to export it to a csv file which will load as a spreadsheet. I then created the user flow and wire frame of the app as shown below.
User Flow
Wire Frames
Design Research & Insights
After Creating the Prototype I ran another set of usability test. Although the simplistic design was well received one of the issues so far is that you are unable to add multiple bank accounts. Another issue I noticed while observing the users was that although the overall goal I gave them was to export a budget sheet, even when multiple users had reached the page with the export button most of them were searching towards the bottom or trying to scroll down to find the button despite it being towards the top of the page. I also noticed them taking time to decipher what each icon on the bottom menu meant. One user actually mentioning that he expected the home page to act more like a table of contents than a default page with the remaining budgets while another mentioned that they thought a filter for time frames would be implemented instead of different tabs on the bottom menu. Overall the users were able to find the export button and create the budget in a few minutes at the most as opposed to the hours initially mentioned that they would spend inputting their data.
Prototype
After creating my Wireframe I then put together a prototype.
Solutions from Feedback
As far as improvements , some of the solutions I implemented are as follows.
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An additional button to add another bank account.
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A filter for the past spending based on different time ranges
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Moving the export button to the bottom.
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Separating the page for the remaining monthly spend from the home page.
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Setting the home page up as a directory.
The Next Iteration
After getting this feedback I created an updated Prototype.
I then did more usability testing to get feed back on the current version.
Solutions from Feedback
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There should be a 'log-out" button on the home page
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The "Add Account" button needs to return the the account page
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Remove the password confirmation box from the login page