Finally

STUDENT WORK 
Maryland Institute College of Art, Master’s in User Experience Design, Capstone

ROLE 
Concept, UX Research, UX Design, UI Design

PROTOTYPE 

The Problem

Finally is a personal finance app designed for people with ADHD. People with ADHD are more likely to suffer from anxiety related to their finances, struggle with debt, find it difficult to stick to a budget, miss bill payments, and impulse spend more often than their peers who are not diagnosed with ADHD. This is because ADHD causes difficulties in maintaining focus, impulsivity, memory, and organization. Existing budgeting products and processes are generally not tailored to the specific needs of this audience, making the financial management process overwhelming and frustrating.

The goal of Finally is to develop a solution that simplifies financial management to accommodate the needs of this user group. Finally seeks to empower individuals with ADHD to gain control over their finances, reduce stress, and improve their overall financial well-being.

Strategy

Over the course of seven weeks, I first conducted formative research and identified key findings. I used this research to inform the design of low fidelity wireframes which I then tested with users, and in parallel created a brand and visual design system. I then applied this design system and the key findings from my usability testing to a high fidelity prototype, and spent the final week compiling my findings into a presentation and case study.

Formative Research

I began my research with two key assumptions: that managing finances is complicated by symptoms of ADHD, and that many people with ADHD have tried methods of financial management that haven’t worked for them. My main research objectives were to understand how people with ADHD are currently managing their finances, and identify key pain points of their current processes as well as potential stumbling blocks for any future systems. To do this, I conducted a competitive analysis as well as eight informational interviews, from which I created an affinity map to identify six key findings which I used to develop two personas and current and future state journey maps for each persona.

Competitive Analysis

I began my research with an analysis of the top three competitors in the space: Rocket Money, You Need a Budget, and Mint. While all three products can be used to create a budget and monitor spending, they each have weaknesses that make them difficult to use for someone with ADHD. Rocket Money has the best automation features, with a minimal focus on consistency. However, it is not tolerant of inconsistent spending, and does not provide any actionable recommendations when a user has exceeded their budget. You Need A Budget has a much stronger focus on teaching financial literacy in a non-judgmental way, but it relies heavily on consistent manual interaction. Mint attempts to automate tracking and categorize spending, but negative reviews of the app frequently complain about mis-categorization and limited customization options, which results in users needing to be very hands-on in managing their budget.

User Interviews

I then conducted 8 interviews with participants who were selected because of their ADHD diagnosis, but I also identified 4 users with co-morbid diagnoses of depression or anxiety, which can also create or worsen symptoms such as difficulty focusing and impaired memory.

From these interviews I created an affinity map, which helped me to identify key findings.

Key Findings

Firstly, I found that participants don’t feel like they’re in control of their finances, with 75% of them answering the question “how are you currently managing your finances?” With variations of “not well” or “I’m not.” I also found that all 8 participants had at some point created a system to manage their finances, but only 2 of them had used their chosen system for more than a few weeks. This was due in part to my third key finding: 7 out of 8 participants said they find it hard to plan ahead due to impulse and hyperfixation related spending. From these findings, we can understand that any future solutions should be focused on creating a sense of control and clarity to users, in a way that will not rely on consistent hands-on management after the initial setup period, and will not only tolerate but help reduce the impact of inconsistent spending habits.

I also discovered several more specific key findings: the majority of participants wanted to know exactly how much of their budget they can spend before they make an impulse purchase, but they also have difficulty remembering whether the money in their account is available to spend or if it should be allocated to bills. Additionally, I found that although the majority of users say they are not doing anything to actively manage their finances, most users do informally review their spending on a monthly basis. These findings can be used to directly inform features of the product, such as a monthly budgeting cycle and prioritizing visibility of available funds. 

Personas

From these findings, I created two personas. Caroline, our first persona, is a 28 year old woman with ADHD who is beginning to think about buying her first house. To do so, she needs to create and stick to a realistic financial plan, but because of her ADHD she often has trouble focusing on complex tasks such as this, and frequently spends impulsively.

We can see in her current state journey map that she begins curious and gets excited as she enters a hyper focused state and creates her financial plan, but ultimately ends up abandoning her plan and feeling overwhelmed and ashamed after an unplanned expense sends her over her strict budget.

In a future state, Caroline can use the Finally app to create a more realistic budget, and although she still encounters an unplanned expense, Finally updates her budget automatically so that she can stay on track for the rest of the month. Even when she decides to buy something impulsively, she remains in control of her spending and ends the month confident in her ability to meet her goal.

Our second persona, Jason, is looking to make general improvements to his quality of life following a pay increase. He wants to pay for services that will help him with things he struggles with due to his ADHD, such as house cleaning and meal deliveries, and also have enough money left to save toward a vacation later this year. To do this, he needs to create a realistic budget that takes into consideration his new recurring payments, but he doesn’t track his spending currently so he isn’t sure where he spends his money now.

In the current state, Jason starts his month feeling excited about the possibilities of how to spend his additional income. However, because he doesn’t track his spending, he ends the month disappointed that he doesn’t have any money left to save toward his vacation.

In a future state, Jason can use the Finally app to automatically track his income and spending, and plan exactly how much he can spend on quality of life improvements while still saving for his vacation. Finally also identifies and notifies Jason of changes in his spending habits, which helps him save money. He ends the month confident that he is spending his money purposefully, and relieved that he doesn’t feel like he’s wasting his money.

User Flows

From the future state journey maps of both personas, I identified jobs to be done that both Caroline and Jason could “hire” Finally to achieve. I then mapped these jobs to be done to the corresponding user flows they would take through the Finally app, and prioritized the four user flows where both Jason and Caroline’s journeys would overlap: budget creation, adding unplanned expenses, exceeding a budget, and a monthly review.

Low Fidelity Wireframes

From here, I created low fidelity wireframes using the Bloo wire framing kit for these four flows to be used in usability testing. 

Design System

In parallel, I created a design system for Finally, including a logo which represents growth, a color palette of calming cool tones which can be used in a variety of configurations and meet AA accessibility standards, and fonts and icons that prioritize clarity and legibility.

Usability Testing

I then moved into usability testing. In the four moderated usability tests I conducted, I sought to validate these key assumptions: that users would see understanding their current spending habits and creating a budget as separate events, users would understand that the app is generating and updating their budget automatically, and that a gamified “achievement” system would help keep users motivated throughout the process. I found through my usability testing however, that many of my assumptions were wrong, and in my high fidelity prototype I made many changes to address the key findings from my research.

The most impactful finding from my research was that users did not understand that the app was automatically generating and updating their budget based on their spending habits. Most users assumed they had to manually enter a budget, and that if their actual spending didn’t match their budget, they would need to manually edit their budget. Even when prompted to “add an upcoming expense”, users first attempted to edit their budget manually, and then didn’t notice that their budget changed automatically when they entered an upcoming expense. I made several changes to the next iteration of both the budget creation and “add an expense” flows to emphasize the automatic nature of these updates, including renaming the “add an expense” feature to “Smart Budget”, and moving this prompt into the “edit budget” screen.

I also found that most users assumed that their current spending overview was where they would edit their budget. I addressed this finding as well as another, that the insights were welcome but the type of insight provided was confusing, by using the data generated by entering current spending information to create insights that highlight the most important aspects of the user’s current spending in a style that is clearly not editable. By changing this section of the flow, I was able to combine the “setup and current spending” and “create a budget” flows into a single onboarding flow, and reduce the number of steps to achieve the same result from 8 to 5.

The most surprising finding from my usability testing is that users really did not like the gamification element. Only one of the four users felt like the achievements were motivating to them, while the other three users found the achievements both distracting and patronizing. I removed this system entirely for the next iteration of the prototype, and will reevaluate other methods of gamification in future iterations of this app.

High Fidelity Prototype

Next Steps

At this point, my next steps can be broken into three phases. In order to reach a minimum viable product, I would need to conduct a second round of usability testing with the revised prototype, as well as begin the design and testing of the managing goals and managing recurring payments user flows. I’d also like to conduct a card sorting test to understand how users would naturally categorize their transactions. After launch, I’d like to conduct an A/B test to see if allowing users to skip onboarding affects the abandonment rate, and evaluate different methods of gamification. In a third phase I’d like to test additional features, such as a browser extension, iOS and Apple Watch widgets and location-based notifications, which would all help remind users of their budget in the spaces where they’re most likely to overspend.

Reflection

I had two key takeaways from designing this product. First, it is crucially important to know who your users are, and why they need your product. Creating truly representative personas and keeping their journeys top of mind throughout the design process was vital to understanding what features would most benefit this specific audience. And lastly, designing a product that reduces the load on a user’s memory, prioritizes scannability, and is exceptionally error-tolerant not only makes it accessible to users who require these accommodations, but improves the experience for all users.