Bean
Role / Services
UX/UI Design & Development
Year
2023
Ideation
Achieving financial goals is pretty awesome. But setting a monthly budget to leverage the income into desired outcomes, can be troublesome.
The process of budgeting requires careful consideration of factors such as net income, monthly bills and essentials, savings and goals, non-essentials, and more. Planning for each category demands effort. I came to wonder, how can we improve budget planning?
Research
What is so hard about Budget planning?
With this question in mind, I conducted interviews to discover ways in which the budgeting process could be improved and to gain a better understanding of potential users, their preferences, and their relationships with spending, monthly budget planning, financial goals, motivations for budgeting, and saving. Main problems include:
Income Types
Users often encounter challenges managing earned, passive, and portfolio income, navigating the diverse sources and fluctuations to develop a well-rounded budgeting plan that aligns with financial goals.
Budget Mindset
Mindset plays a big role in having good experience. Users often struggle to overcome the guilt associated with budget plans, thereby affecting their tracking behavior and ability to achieve goals.
Budget Buddy
Collaborative budgeting within a household can be a complex experience. Establishing a budget plan for more than one individual and controlling it can also be challenging.
Research / Insights
Analysis and Insights
After research, I analyzed the findings, and created some notes, and user flows to help understand the structure and goals of the app. Main insights:
Spending Tracking 
Users tend to track their spending by creating different spending categories.
Budget Visualization
Graphs were identified as the most effective way to display budgets.
Goals Setting
Visual representation of goals enhances user motivation.
Research / Iteration
Usability Study
After creating fidelity prototypes, I gathered feedback from users to identify usability issues. To gather feedback, I asked 4 people to test the prototype that I created.
Outcomes/ Findings
- Users have a preference for assigning distinct colors to various expense categories.
- Users prefer a home screen that offers a comprehensive overview while keeping the processes of resetting/adding goals and expenses separated on their respective pages.
- Users also desire the ability to monitor their progress toward savings goals within that budget ,once the monthly budget is established.
Design
Design Approach
To maintain visual consistency and ensure a cohesive and user-friendly experience across all interfaces and interactions, I created a design system. Using green is often associated with money, wealth, and financial stability. It can evoke a sense of security, growth, and prosperity.
Going Forward
Takeaway
- I learned about the importance of iterative user testing and incorporating user feedback throughout the design process.
- Always keep in mind the problem that you are trying to solve.
Next Steps
- Launch of the monthly goals setting feature.
- Introduce a collaborative shared household budget feature, facilitating the addition of members to a shared budget plan.