A UX Research project

First steps

The journey began coming up with key assumptions about our users’ needs. These are the main assumptions:

• Users lack a full understanding of their finances.
• Users lack a simple and secure financial management tool.
• Users lack engaging and practical savings tools.
• Users desire a fun and rewarding savings experience

The Design Thinking Process

After defining the key assumptions I thought it would be good to use the Design Thinking process as a tool in this project, starting with Empathize, then Define and Ideate. For a full project the next steps would be to build a prototype and the test it, but in this project this was not part of the brief. And due to the time constraints it was not possible to complete the whole Design Thinking process, but I have possibly plans to finish this project on my own time later on, since it is an interesting project.

Empathize

With a focus on understanding the target users presented to us in the assignment: young professionals seeking a fun and straightforward way to manage their finances. Doing desk research, looking into competition and current banking apps.
We were also assigned to create a screening survey to gather more insights and possible interviewees. I garnered insights from 76 respondents from the screening survey, providing me with a broad perspective on the users' needs and preferences, and was able to find 5 interviewees to book for online interviews and card sorting.

Define

In the Define stage I analyzed the insights gathered from the previous interviews to define the core user needs and challenges. While synthesizing the survey data and feedback, I was able to gain important insights and pinpoint some of the specific financial management issues young professionals face, aiming to address them with better features in this banking app. In the assignment we were also supposed to come up with "Principles for Design" and "Next steps", since the first part of the project was for the Field Work module, and the next parts for the Design Principles module.

Insights from the survey and interviews

1. Knowing how money is spent: In this case the assumption was disproved, users demonstrated a clear understanding of their spending habits.
2. Financial Management Tool: While inconclusive, some users expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of practical features in existing banking apps.
3. Savings and Customization: This confirmed the hypothesis, users want a user-friendly app providing customization options.
4. Gamification and Social Features: The hypothesis about users wanting to have fun while saving money was inconclusive, with varying opinions on gamification.

Principles for Design

1. The app should be easy to use and accessible to a diverse audience.
2. Users should find joy in saving money when using the app.
3. Customizable interface and ability to customize savings and expenditure categories.

Ideate

In this phase, I came up with new ideas to solve the identified challenges and wishes from the users. This ideation process was aimed at brainstorming possible features, functionalities, and user experience enhancements that would make financial management not only easy, but also engaging for the target persona.
How might we?

Prototype

Though this assignment didn't require the development of a tangible prototype or mockup, this stage was conceptually addressed through collaborative discussions with four other students from the UX Designer course. We worked as a team to compare our individual results and envision potential solutions, focusing on usability and user engagement.

Test

Instead of conventional testing with prototypes, our assignment was to present a storyboard with our idea to five participants. This approach allowed us to gather qualitative feedback on the possible usability and desirability of our ideas for features and functionalities, further refining the understanding of our user’s needs.