MyFinsight – Lucy Wang

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.

My Role

Product Design
Wireframing
Prototyping
Accessibility Design

Product Design
Research & Strategy
Wireframing
Prototyping
Interaction Design

Project Scope

5 Day Sprint

Platform

Apple Watch

Tools

Sketch
InVision
After Effects

THE CHALLENGE

How might we provide timely and relevant information that helps customers make better day-to-day decisions with their money?

OUR SOLUTION

Leveraging the accessibility of wearable technology to help customers manage their financial health through personalized alerts and challenges.

PROBLEM SPACE

A generation living paycheck-to-paycheck

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

millennials say that their biggest financial concern is managing their day-to-day expenses

millennials say that their biggest financial concern is managing their day-to-day expenses.

53%

OUR SOLUTION

53%

of millennials invest exactly zero time in managing their personal finances

of millennials invest exactly zero time in managing their personal finances.

USER RESEARCH

Talking to struggling millennials

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

Reframing the problem

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

We believe that struggling millennials can build a more positive relationship with money if they keep on top of their day-to-day finances and build up momentum through accomplishing bite-sized achievements.

ACCESSIBILITY CHALLENGE

Designing for a crowded, distracting environment

On the second day of the sprint, each team was given a unique accessibility challenge that the user is faced with to prioritize in their design solutions. Our team’s prompt was to design a banking experience for a user in a crowded, distracting public space.

STORYBOARDING

Identifying different scenarios

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

Empathizing with the user context

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:

Privacy Concerns

Lots of prying eyes around sensitive banking information

Limited Attention Span

Lack of focus in a distracting environment

Social Cues

Looking down at a phone can seem disrespectful in a social context

BRAINSTORMING

Exploring ideas and opportunities with wearable technology

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

Prioritizing personalized actionable insights

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

Low fidelity prototyping

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

Testing assumptions by recruiting at the margins

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.

Iterating on user feedback

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

Introducing MyFinsight

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.

Why Smart Watch?

Always In Sight. Always Insightful.

Always In Sight. Always Insightful.

A smartwatch is always within a user’s field of view, keeping important financial health insights top-of-mind and accessible in any situation.

Less is More.

With a smaller screen, only the most critical information is displayed. This means that users are able to quickly see where they stand at a glance, even with a limited attention span.

Haptic Alerts.

Users feel a light tap on the top of their wrist when their weekly insights are ready, improving accessibility even in loud, busy environments