PROJECT OVERVIEW

This rapid design project was based on a prompt given by the Scotiabank Digital Factory to design an accessible experience that provides timely and relevant information to help customers better manage their personal finances. Three person teams were created with different roles and responsibilities to simulate today’s work environment. 

We conducted research, prototyped ideas, and pitched our solution to Scotiabank executives, winning the 1st place prize.

• 5 Day Sprint

• Apple Watch

• Sketch
• InVision
• After Effects

THE CHALLENGE

PROBLEM SPACE

Millennials living in the modern world are facing unprecedented economic hurdles. With the rise of the gig economy coupled with skyrocketing costs of living and crippling student debt, almost 2 in 3 millennials are currently living paycheck-to-paycheck.

This means that the majority of millennials don’t save any money and are feeling financially overwhelmed and behind.

1 IN 2

USER RESEARCH

In our research, we conducted 6 in-person interviews with students and part-time workers in their 20s to better understand their relationship with money. We wanted to uncover insights to questions such as:

• How are millennials spending their money? What patterns can we find in their behaviours?
• What are the barriers keeping them from achieving their financial goals?

The interviews were semi-structured and conducted casually to keep the participants feeling at ease when speaking about the personal topic.

RESEARCH INSIGHTS

We synthesized our first-hand interview data and created broad, high-level themes from the insights we gathered. Three major themes emerged from key quotes:

Money Anxiety

“I am always worried about money. I’m too scared to check my bank account sometimes, and I end up only looking at it when there’s bills I have to pay for.”

Overspending

“Whenever I get my paycheck, I would just go out and spend it on food, going out with friends, and I always end up with very little to save.”

Intimidating Goals

“Lofty money goals like buying a house can feel so impossible to achieve that it actually paralyzes me – I end up doing nothing about it instead.”

HYPOTHESIS

ACCESSIBILITY CHALLENGE

STORYBOARDING

To put ourselves into the shoes of the user, we sketched out different scenarios where a user might check their personal finances in the context of a crowded, distracting environment. The goal of this exercise was to see how a user would feel, think, and act in the scenario in order to identify opportunities and potential use cases for design intervention.

USER MINDSET

After exploring different scenarios, we decided to tap into the user’s mindset in order to understand their needs within a contextual environment. To do this, we mapped out branches of experiences that we uncovered through storyboarding to specific user pain points. The three main points that surfaced were:

BRAINSTORMING

We took the major themes uncovered from our interviews as well as the accessibility challenges of being in a crowded, distracting environment to do some blue sky thinking around what a potential solution might look like. We decided to focus our exploration on a watch-centered experience to optimize for accessibility. This constrains our design ideation to a smaller screen and narrows the scope of the project to a companion app.

To ideate rapidly, we conducted a Crazy 8’s session to quickly generate concepts and visualizations:

FEATURE SELECTION

After the storyboarding and brainstorming sessions, we decided to narrow down the core functionality of the solution to prioritize delivering meaningful actionable insights to the user. This means that users would receive personalized insights on a regular basis that are predictive and prescriptive, making it easy for them to make better day-to-day decisions about their finances.

WIREFRAMING

Based on the core functionality of the app, we created initial sketches and digital wireframes to prototype and test. The goal was to test out different design components quickly and receive ongoing user feedback early.

USABILITY TESTING

Since wearable technology is not yet a staple in every household, we decided that it would be insightful to recruit participants who have never interacted with an Apple Watch in addition to long-time users. We conducted usability testing with 6 participants–3 who are Apple Watch users and 3 who have never interacted with one. We asked each participant to imagine a scenario where they’re checking their finances in a crowded, distracting environment to gauge their expectations around the app’s design and features.

By testing with non-users, we were able to gather valuable insights around accessibility and mental models that are overlooked by more experienced users.

From the qualitative feedback we received, we pinpointed key usability problems with both groups and came up with design solutions to test and validate. Here’s how we incorporated user feedback to arrive at the final design:

FINAL SOLUTION PROTOTYPE

MyFinsight is a companion financial health tracker app on the Apple Watch that helps young busy millennials stay up to date with their finances from anywhere, anytime.

PRODUCT PITCH

CONCLUSION

As someone who has never even touched an Apple Watch or any kind of wearable technology, this project really challenged me to look beyond my own experiences and start from a clean slate–from a purely user-centric perspective. By asking lots of questions and observing how Apple Watch users interact with their device, I was able to put my assumptions to the test and gain lots of new insights quickly. I learned that people use their smartwatch in fundamentally different ways than their smartphone. Smartwatch users only look at their watch for a few seconds, so designing for ‘glanceability’ is absolutely critical. If a user is unable to complete an action in 1 or 2 screens under 5 seconds, they will most likely be disengaged by the experience. From these learnings, we were able to prioritize accessibility in all areas of our final design to optimize for a 'glance-centered' experience.