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Budgetwise Trends Visualization Feature
Budgetwise is a start up company pioneering a progressive personal finance management app geared towards financially savvy individuals. The Budgetwise app allows users to create budget organization, set saving goals, link Google account to import pre-existing spreadsheets and use our Budgetwise template to have the app automatically reflect the numbers in your spreadsheet. Budgetwise version 2 aims to add a trends features that provide data visualization of spending trends to keep users informed about their spending habits. In this project I design the Trends feature that will be released in version 2.0 update of the DoughRise app.
Timeline: 1 week
My Role: UX/UI Designer
Scope: Take full responsibility of researching and developing designs for the trends page for the iOS DoughRise mobile app.
Survey results indicate that both new and seasoned budgeters are looking for 3 things when reviewing their monthly spending habits.
- a summary of their overall spending habits.
- understand where they might need to change their spending habits.
- the flexibility to compare the expenses within broad categories.
- I designed the trends page with easy-to-read bar and line charts for users to quickly understand and compare their current overall spending.
- I incorporated a favoriting feature for users to easily keep track of specific spending habits.
- I added categorical spending tab that details a breakdown of month-to-month spending in the subcategories.
Budgetwise initially aims to appeal to a millennial user base, people who have accumulated enough financial standing to need to budget, however, they also aim to appeal to a younger audience who are just starting to manage their finances. To understand the needs of both user groups, I conducted a handful of interviews about their current budgeting habits and spending goals.
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I learned that budgeters had tried a variety of different apps in the market. To understand their issues, I evaluated our top competitors' data visualization features and other key features mentioned during the interviews.
My analysis revealed that all competitors had a sufficient visual of overall spending summary and a notification system to alert users that they were approaching their set budget. However, Almost none of them had a detailed visual breakdown of users' categorical spending. Only the YNAB app offered all the features I evaluated in my analysis, but only with a subscription fee and a substantial learning curve, according to app reviews.
Mint and EveryDollar both meet users needs in customizability, however both lack a detailed visual breakdown of users' categorical spending, which interview testimonial indicates is vital in tracking their spending habits.
I identified two distinct types of budgeters during the user interviews and developed 2 persona's to address the needs of both.
I mapped out a journey map for each persona to understand when they were likely to hit pain points in a given everyday scenario.
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I wireframed conceptual layouts with key features for the trends page.
I brought these wireframes to a table discussion with peer designers, our product manager, and our founder. After gaining consensus on the features for a minimum viable product, I developed a prototype and utilized Maze to test 3 key features of the trends page.
- Viewing overall spending weekly, over 6 months, and over 1 year.
- Adding or deleting budgets to favorites to keep track of specific spending habits.
- checking spending by category.
18 unmoderated sessions and follow-up interviews
1. Viewing overall spending weekly, over 6 months, and over 1 year.
- Users founds the data visualization informative and easy to understand.
- Swiping between the different views was more intuitive than using the selection bar. Due to issues with testing software, swiping wasn’t always possible, resulting in 3 users unable to complete the task. These users indicated that the selection bar was not prominent enough.
2. Adding or deleting budgets to “favorites” to keep track of specific spending habits.
- Users enjoyed this feature and found it easy to find and interact with.
- Participants especially enjoyed the easy process of adding a budget to “favorites” and the organization of the their categories as they select the budget they want to favorite.
3. Checking spending by category.
- Users found it easy to switch between tabs, but indicated in their follow interview that it was difficult to tell which tab they were currently viewing.
- participants were pleasantly surprised at concise but informative information they found on these pages.
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This project was a very fruitful experience in allowing me to stretch my design thinking skills. Working for a startup has taught me...
- The design process is flexible and how I develop a design is less about following a rigid procedure and more about responding to the information that I learn as I go.
- Communication is key to conveying design decisions to stakeholders. It is incredibly vital to be an advocate for your end users despite disagreement with stakeholders.
- Rely on your research. Only by doing comprehensive research on your user and market, can a UX designer really develop a design that will make an impact on the product.