Team
Individual Project
My Role
User Research, Ideation, User Flow, Wireframing, Prototyping
Duration
5 weeks
Project Overlook
This project begins from researching on financial problems in romantic relationships. From second research to primary research, I refined the problem statement In the end, I created a prototype of budgeting app for couples for future user testing and iteration. Pouch helps couples to plan and budget their dating expenses and work as a tool to help them talk about money and financial situations.
Project Timeline
Research
Learning about the problems
According the National Endowment for Financial Education and YourTango.com survey, 89 percent said they spend more while in a relationship. Budgeting seems harder when people are in a relationship or dating because they often needs to go on dates, such as a fancy dinner and wine tasting.
Meanwhile, money is always a taboo thing to discuss in a relationship. Starting to talk about money with the other person often creates anxiety and shame. However, The Washington Post says “Seventy-eight percent of couples who talk weekly about money say they are happy as opposed to 60 percent of couples who talk every few months and 50 percent who talk even less frequently.”
Sources:
https://www.moneyaftergraduation.com/is-it-more-expensive-to-be-single-or-in-a-relationship/
https://grow.acorns.com/cheaper-to-be-single-or-in-relationship/
https://medium.com/fairlo/why-is-money-a-taboo-topic-f695c680cdab
User Research: Finding Pain Point and opportunities
I conducted user research using google survey and face to face interview to better understand the pain points and potential opportunities. Within a 3 day period, I was able to collect 9 user survey and 2 user interviews. Below is a data visualization of the results .
I conducted user surveys and user interviews to validate my problem statement as well as finding new insights and opportunities. With my current sample size, I concluded some insights and synthesized insights into opportunities.
User Pain Points
Synthesizing User Expectations
When planing dating expenses, there are things that couples value the most
Target Demographics
My survey and interviews showed that students and young professionals are more likely to worry about dating expenses. People who are in a long term relationship often can't avoid to discuss about dating expenses.
Design
Refining Design Statement
Designing a platform that helps to budget dating expenses requires minimal commitment.
1.Minimal commitment
2.Daily reminder that helps user to be consistent of budgeting.
3.Provide romantic and fun features that progress user's relationship.
Ideation
Having the design statement in mind, I brainstormed with my designer friends and came up with multiple solutions that provide easy access, minimal commitment, and interactive features. Let's see how I use User Persona and Storyboard to Illustrate them and decide which ideas to keep!
Meet the User : User Persona and Storyboard
Amy's Journey Map and Storyboard
With the questions "Where should I implement the design?" in mind, I mapped out a journey map to see the gaps regarding spending money on dates and budgeting. I found out that there is a gap between "planning the date" and "checking the spending" where the expectation on how much they plan to spend and how much they actually spent doesn't align with each other.
Then, I used Storyboard to visualize key features.
Information Architecture
Wire flows
With the Information architecture, I was able to visualize the app more clearly; then, I decided to create three wireframes that show the idea of the main features of this app. The first flow is how to set the budget, the second is to get date recommendations, and the third is to track expenses.
High-fidelity Prototype
While wire flows helped me visualize the features and user flows, I decided to create high fidelity prototype for user testing. The image below is the overview of the three key flows.
Usability Testing
I conducted a couple of A/B testing to understand user preference better.
Key Interactions
Add Budget and Expenses
Get Date Recommendations
Check Previous Spending
Things to improve
1. I could collect more user interviews within the same time frame by sending the survey out into different platform and sending them more frequently. By collecting more interviews and survey, the data would be more accurate and convincing.
2. I was only focusing on the key features during this limited time. If I had more time, I would start to think on a larger ecosystem and iterate and brainstorm other features.
