Redefining savings habits for
recent college graduates
Dime
Design Timeline
4 months - 2024
PROJECT SUMMARY
Problem
My Role
End-to-end experience - Product Designer
Recent college graduates lack financial literacy and effective money management skills.
Recent graduates face challenges like limited financial literacy, student loan burdens and shifting priorities. These factors can lead to a cycle of debt and financial insecurity.
Dime is personalized financial tracking application to guide, set, manage and visualize finances.
Solution
CONTEXT
CONTEXT
Problem Discovery
Research Methods to Derive to User Pain Points
Recent college graduates lack financial literacy and effective money management skills.
Fresh out of college and starting a new job can be exhilarating, but managing newfound income can also be overwhelming. Lack of financial knowledge or feeling overwhelmed by the planning process can make it difficult to stay motivated.
30+ Web Articles & Papers
To understand the motivations and phycology.
56%
of Americans can’t cover a $1000 emergency expense with savings.
73%
increase in savings rates was found among people who associated positive emotions with savings behaviors after three weeks.
95%
goals are successful by having an accountability partner..
12+ Interviews
To understand their frustrations and motivations.
Competitive & Gap Analysis
To identify competitors and analyze the gap in the market.
RESEARCH
User Interviews
Fresh out of college and starting a new job can be exhilarating, but managing newfound income can also be overwhelming. Lack of financial knowledge or feeling overwhelmed by the planning process can make it difficult to stay motivated.
Target Audience
Primary User
20 - 27 years
Recent college graduates
Frustrations
Spending more than planed which affects monthly savings.
Unsure how much should be saved and invested for specific goals.
They are concerned about not making enough money to save or losing their job/income source unexpectedly.
Tracking and monitoring monthly EMIs and monthly bill payments.
A key gap in personalization and guidance.
Competitive and
Gap Analysis
Personalization
Limited customization
Minimal
assistance
Guidance
and Knowledge
Opportunity Area
Insights
Lack of Motivation
Users struggle with consistently tracking expenses due to overwhelming information or complicated tools.
Lack of Guidance
Users lack basic knowledge, leading to bad financial decision making and challenges in managing resources.
Users feel overwhelmed by the amount of financial information and uncertain where to start and what to prioritize.
Lack of Knowledge
What stood out...
Positive emotions with savings
Distinguishing between needs and wants
Accountability and Guidance
How might we facilitate recent college graduates in initiating savings to achieve their financial goals?
IDEATION
Jobs to be done
Jobs to be done was used to guide ideation. Then grouped these jobs by the frequency of mention and organized them in a chart, ranking them based on the importance of each job to user goals.
Feature prioritization
It helped to strategically decide which features to design and give importance to and visually evaluating their potential impact and effort.
Fleshing Out Final Ideas
TESTING AND FEEDBACK
TESTING AND FEEDBACK
Catering towards 4 main flows
Track and budgeting expenses
Visualize success through goals and foster motivation
Guide to personalized recommendations
Accountability Partner Integration
Wireframes
Testing layouts and the design with multiple versions and setbacks.
V2
V1
2 Major improvements to the design
User Testing + Improvements
A expert usability testing method was done keeping in mind the users and their understanding the systems learnability and effectiveness.
Guided onboarding experience
A guided onboarding UI is crucial for a finance application because it helps establish trust and minimize confusion about complex financial processes.
*Digital Onboarding in Digital Banks: How to Reduce Risk
Changing the bottom navigation
After user testing, making the navigation more easy to understand was a feedback.
DESIGNING THE UI
Design System
Design System with 45+ Components in Under 1 Week
The design system aims to evoke the brand personality of being Helpful, Empathetic, Educational, Motivational and most importantly Trustworthy. It should also reflect energy as to connect with the users.
FINAL DESIGN
01
Tracking and budgeting expenses
1. Monitoring and gaining actionable insights on spendings.
2. Design a budget tailored to everyday needs and easily adjust it as priorities change.
03
Accountability Partner Integration
1. Stay on track and provide evidence with an accountability partner who keeps you motivated.
2. Proof of evidence helps to lock in commitment.
04
Guide to personalized recommendations
1. Receive personalized recommendations and expert guidance.
2. Ask anything finance
05
Guided onboarding experience
02
Goals setting and managing
1. Define clear objectives and track progress with each step.
2. According to research, associating positive emotions with savings behaviors helped users increase their savings rates by up to 73% at the end of three weeks.
Reflection
Time Management and communication is key
Efficiency was vital. It helped me realize imperative it is to narrow your focus when a project’s scope is as expansive as this one.
Always start your ideation with a sketch.
Sketching our ideas and testing them internally early on helped to a more refined stage The amount of effort that we put in was much less compared to the valuable feedback that we got just based on a sketch.
A Mock-up’s worth a Thousand Words
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