MoneyMate - A functional & accessible Fintech app which leverages A.I to help millennials manage their finances.
Overview
A solo passion project where my goal was to create a fintech app to help people manage their finances, prompting me to delve deeper into the reasons users were experiencing money management issues.
Timeline
May 2023 - July 2023 (8 weeks)
Tools
Figma
Miro
Google docs/forms
🚫 Problem
Millennials face challenges in managing their finances, often feeling overwhelmed and unsure about how to take control.
Goals
Create an application that caters to user needs & helps them be financially prepared.
Solution
An accessible fintech app that uses A.I to help millennials improve their financial literacy and build better money habits.
MoneyMate excels by enhancing core functionalities such as education, goal setting, security measures, user flow, and budgeting.
AI Driven Education hub
- Personalized Learning: The hub tailors content to user preferences and behaviour, allowing further customization through topic tokens to align with personal goals.
- Dynamic Content Feed: A constantly updating feed offers articles, videos, and resources.
- Interactive Features: Offers tools to save, rate, and valuable resources with others, fostering deeper engagement.
A focus on Emergency funds
- Goal setting: Users can set financial goal's.
- Reminders of emergency funds importance: Keeps users accountable
for being prepared for challenges. - Automatic saving deposits: Makes saving easier and less challenging.
Trustworthy security
- Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): Multiple forms of verification.
- Security Notifications: For any suspicious account activity.
- Session timeout and auto logout: Ensure's users never fail to leave their data and finances open to others.
White paper research
A study conducted in 2023 on 8,373 Millennial's from 44 different countries found that:
52% of Millennials are living paycheque to paycheque & 42% of are concerned with cost of living 🫣.
A poll conducted in 2023, on behalf of BMO Financial Group found:
Young Millennials (94%), and Older Millennial's(91%) are interested in some kind of personal finance information📗.
As a millennial who has personally faced challenges with saving, I was compelled to investigate whether these difficulties reflect wider trends among my generation.
The data found reflects the struggle's millennials face around finances.
User Research
Surveys:
84% of users are interested in receiving financial education 📙.
To validate the hypothesis, I created an online survey which consisted of 8 questions. Secondly I conducted user interviews. The survey involved 41 participants, 24 - 38 years old.
Interviews:
Users are significantly affected by factors outside their control, such as inflation and unexpected costs.
I conducted 8 user interviews and asked users 8 questions curated from my research to gain more insights into their financial management. Interviews were conducted via Zoom/Facetime.
Affinity mapping
96 data points from user interviews.
To get a better understanding of the new data point's I took part in affinity mapping to identify common themes.
From analyzing data and user insights, two key themes emerged.
Reframed problem
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Competitive analysis
Analysis highlights opportunities to enhance financial education and Literacy.
What are competitors are doing well and not so well. The aim was to identify features and functions that could help my target audience.
Advantage in the market could be gained through:
- A strong focus on financial literacy
- Improved User Interface
- Accessibility
- A strong focus on security measures
- Accountability
- User flow
User Jouneys
Journey narratives provided a deeper understanding and allowed me to empathize with their unique journeys interacting with a tool aimed to help them.
After a detailed analysis of survey and interview data, I crafted user personas and mapped their end to end journeys with our app.
While a competitive audit could provide additional context, I chose to focus on directly addressing user needs identified through research to create a solution tailored to the target audience.
How might we (HMW)
- How might we help millennials be better prepared for financial burdens out of their control?
- How might we deliver personalized financial education that engages users at their level of understanding?
- How might we empower and educate users to feel more confident and in control of their financial decisions?
Most Viable Product (MVP)
Based on my research and direct responses to the "How might we" questions, I developed several key features for MoneyMate, each designed to meet the specific needs of millennials managing their finances:
- AI-Driven Education Hub: Personalized financial education focused on user preferences.
- Automated saving: Features customizable, automated saving settings with motivational notifications.
- Dashboard: Offers a quick, simplified overview of finances to ease understanding.
User flow
A user flow that efficiently guides users to their goals with minimal steps to reduce users being over worked.
After understanding what features users needed, I created a streamlined user flow which enhances user satisfaction by simplifying interactions and improving navigation.
- Education hub
- Goal creation
- Budget creation
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Style guide
A dark mode approach was implemented to enhance accessibility (WCAG AAA compliance) and to provide the app with a sleek, professional appearance.
Designed to meet the AAA WCAG standard, ensuring it is accessible to a wide range of users, including those with disabilities. Prioritizing this level of accessibility reflects a commitment to inclusivity and ensures that all users can navigate and interact with the app seamlessly.
Primary Colour
Secondary Colour
Typeography
Headline 1 - Open sans Semi Bold 22
Headline 2 - Open sans Regular 22
Headline 3 - Open sans Semi bold 18
Body text - Open sans Regular 16
Mid-fidelity, Hi-Fidelity
While features like the dashboard, goal setting and budget management were informed by competitor analysis and past experiences with these features.
The education hub presented a different focus with the goal of effectively conveying information efficiently, I drew inspiration from news and education apps such as Medium for its structure and design, aiming to create an intuitive, engaging, informing experience for users.
Usability testing & iteration
Identified key issues with contrast and information hierarchy. Leading to iterations of the bottom navigation, dashboard & goals page.
I conducted user testing with a hi-fidelity prototype with 6 users. Users complimented the aesthetic of the app which was encouraging, they liked the concept of the app and thought the education hub could be very useful. However, participants highlighted the following pain points:
- The bottom navigation did not stand out enough from the content on the page and users struggled to see it at first.
- The dual line area chart was too complex for some of the users to understand what information it was relaying to them.
- User's questioned how they would get fresh articles suggested to them in the education hub if they had already read the ones currently suggested.
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Bottom navigation
The colours of the bottom navigation were updated to more vibrant hues, and both the icons and typography were enlarged to enhance visibility and ease of use.
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Simplfying the chart
Users found the dashboard dual line area chart confusing and struggled to understand how to interpret the data it presented. The chart was switched to a simpler bar graph format.
Adding a refresh feature
A refresh feature was added to the education hub to allow content to always remain new and fresh as user's were curious as to how articles can be renewed.
Reflection
What went well?
- During testing, there were no significant concerns raised about the effectiveness of implemented features.
- Adhering WCAG standerd's (AAA) throughout the app allowed my app to be accessible.
- Initially, I found the fintech space quite intimidating, reflecting a common sentiment many people share. However, as I delved deeper into my research, my understanding grew, and I became more confident in navigating this complex field.
What could of gone better?
- If I had more time I would of liked to implement and test an AI chat bot into the app to help users get a better all round experience. Using the chat bot to problem solve for users.
- I was concerned that asking people about their finances may be too intrusive so it took me a while to curate questions that were not too intrusive but would give me the information I needed.
- The Education Hub effectively delivered personalized learning, but setting structured learning goals could further engage users and enhance their educational journey
What did I learn?
- I’ve gained valuable insights into how A.I can assist and solve problems for people in the fintech space.
- I learnt to analyze and find trends from a large amount of data points.
- The belief that Fintec apps can really help people manage their finances efficiently by improving their knowledge and keeping them accountable.
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