Ui/ux Deisgn
A Reimagined Mobile Budgeting APP
organization
Bits of Good
ROLE
UI/UX Designer
Team Members
Rayann Liang Hannah Tsai
YEAR
2023
The goal was to create a a mobile app that would combine the convenience of mobile budgeting with the benefits of desktop budgeting.
Responsibilities
Responsible for research, semi-structured interviews, competitive analysis, concept sketching, wireframing, hi-fi prototyping, and user testing
Background
In Fall of 2023, I participated in a UI/UX bootcamp hosted by GT Bits of Good. Where I had the opportunity to research a problem and conduct user research to create a mobile application prototype.
While researching we discovered that there was a gap between desktop budgeting and mobile budgeting. Although there were many mobile budgeting apps on the market, a vast amount of people preferred desktop budgeting (e.g. Excel & Google Sheets) compared to mobile budgeting. We set out to figure out why and create a mobile app that would combine the convenience of mobile budgeting with the benefits of desktop budgeting.
Problem Statement
Process
Research Goals
Understanding user’s goals when the are budgeting
Learning features users hope to see
Identify user tendencies in certain platforms
Competitive Analysis
Research Method
14 survey results, 5 semi-structured interviews, 3 user flows
Interview: We conducted interview sessions with five participants, each exhibiting varying degrees of engagement in budgeting
P1: Freshman at GT, pays for tuition, uses Mint once a month
"Every time I open my app I look at the given graph. It makes me feel more satisfied after I see my budget progress"
P2: Recent college graduate, makes income, uses Excel once a month
P3: Junior at GT, makes income for wants, uses journaling each month
"I usually journal and use an app to budget. But I like to journal because it puts me in a more productive mindset to budget."
P4: Senior at GT, just started getting income, uses Google Sheets each month
P5: Freshman at GT, making income, uses Excel twice a month
" I will go to my Excel sheet and update it every other week. It's simple and gives me full control."
Key Findings
Users like visual and synthesized data.
We discovered through our interviews and surveys that the majority of participants use desktop budgeting or journal budgeting. Through our interviews we were able to discover that people liked paper and desktop budgeting due to the fact that they both allow for complete customization. Users have complete freedom on how they want to budget and how they want to display their data. Users specifically emphasized that Excel allowed them to create their own graphs and choose how to visualize their own data.
Users want to get into the mindset of budgeting to control the budgeting process
We discovered that mobile budgeting was a little too “convenient”. Mobile budgeting has a lot of automatic features such connecting banking apps to the budget which allows for transactions to be automatically sorted. Many participants like categorizing transactions themselves as it allows them to see what they spent on and put it to a category of their liking.
There should be a balance features without overwhelming the application
During participant interviews, we asked about their preference for desktop budgeting over mobile budgeting. The main reasons were a sense of being overwhelmed by the different features present in budgeting apps and their perception that Excel was easier to learn.
Lo-Fi
Conducted rigorous testing across various devices and platforms to ensure compatibility and performance. Gathered user feedback through beta testing and iteratively optimized the app based on usability metrics and user satisfaction.
Lo Fi
Data visualization home page
This page has graphs that users can choose to have complete customization of how they want to display their budgeting data
Logging page for budget plans
This page offers the convenience of using previous budgeting plans which emphasizes the convenience the mobile applications can offer.
Drag & drop for transactions
This page allows for users to customize which notifications they would like to receive to customize their budgeting experience within the application.
Reflection
This is the first time I have fully defined the scope of the problem, performed user research, and created wireframes. Previously only having experience UI projects, so engaging in a project that emphasized both UI and UX was truly eye-opening and interesting. I gained valuable insights into the research process and learned how to effectively conduct user research, which greatly enhanced my understanding of the UI/UX project workflow.
I learned a lot about time management during this project, as it was the first time my partner and I collaborated on such an extensive UI/UX project. Given the vastness of the budgeting topic, we aimed to cover every aspect we discovered. However, we quickly realized that 10 weeks were insufficient to fully develop all our ideas. So we made the decision to prioritize the most crucial elements of our application for further development, ensuring that our work reflects the core aspects of our vision. Through this experience, we were able to work efficiently under time constraints, allowing us to showcase the best possible version of our application during our timeframe.