Overview

Budgeting Can Be a Game

Five-day solo design sprint while at General Assembly.

Budget-Me is a budgeting app whose design inherently instills a proven budgeting method, gameifying the activity to create accountability and induce healthy fiscal habits. Given my personal struggles to find a budgeting solution that truly worked for me, I sought to identify a need for a different kind of tool and addressing it. Through extensive research and rapid prototyping exercises, I developed an early prototype of Budget-Me. 

Role: Solo Project

Project Type: Native Mobile App

Design Tools: Paper & Pen 

Research Method/Deliverables: User Interviews & Affinity Diagram | Competitive Matrices | User Flow | Storyboard | User Flows

Research Phase

There is a need to redefine budgeting

User Interviews

I began my research interviewing four young-adults (ages 25 - 35) who were relatively new to budgeting or intermittent budgeters. I was deeply interested in learning about their motivations, existing habits and desired outcomes of budgeting as well as their tools of choice and their history with money as well. Below are a few key findings from my interviews:

• We need a better method: though all the participants budget to some degree, they unanimously asserted that they want to do a better job controlling their spending so that they can save more. They also felt that current tools did not provide accountability for overspending or not saving.

• Users are using trackers and not budgeting systems: The participants used Microsoft Excel or Mint to budget. Since Excel (unless you created an extensive model) and Mint are not based on a budgeting philosophy, these are excellent tools to help track your cash flow but does little to help change any unwanted behaviors or habits around your personal finances.

Competitive Analysis

• Majority of the popular “budgeting” tools make tracking easier but does not offer a budgeting system: Much like Mint and Excel, majority of the other products on the market simplify the budgeting procedure for the user but it requires the user to apply their own budgeting concept/system, if they have one.

• A few of the popular budgeting products are built on solid budgeting principles but there is a steep/prohibitive learning curve: These products often requires one to be indoctrinated with the budgeting philosophy in order to use the application. That is to say, the user will find it difficult to learn the budgeting concept just by interacting with the app.

The Problem

As a novice budgeter, I want to control my month-to-month spending better so that I can save more money.

Solution Strategy

Gamification of Budgeting

The Theory of Motivation

Tap Into what motivates people: In the book 100 Things Every Designer Should Know About People by Susan M. Weinschenk, Ph.D, it outlines several studies on what motivates people. Below are a few key elements that I wanted to build into the design:

• People are motivated by progress, mastery and control: the app needs to be an easy reference tool at the point-of-purchase (when one is trying to decide if they should buy something). The user needs to know how the current spending ability was impacted by past actions and how it will impact future spending. 

• Forming habits take time and require easily achievable steps: The app will help users focus on month-to-month savings goals. Sure the app will have data on the long-term trend of any current savings but the emphasis will be on having the user decide on a small actionable step now.

The Budgeting System

The “why” needs to be apparent: Simon Sinek, in his book “Start With Why”, asserts that people are inspired to take action because of the reason behind it rather than the action itself. I believe that a budgeting system that is perceivable through the design can provide the “why”. Let me explain:

• Pay Yourself First - I believe it’s safe to say that majority of people, apart from rent, utility and car payments, typically make discretionary spending first then save whatever is leftover. The app will focus on getting users to save first before all other expenses. You worked hard for the money so why should everyone else get the first cut? Wouldn’t you rather pay yourself first? 

• Zero - Sum Game - This concept means that any money spent or saved has an equal and opposite impact. For example, if you spend $100 on clothes, that’s money not saved or spent elsewhere. The app will provide instant feedback on every fiscal decision a user makes. 

Solution Statement

Budget-Me is a mobile solution that gamifies budgeting, based on a proven system that prioritizes your savings goals and a design that creates accountability and induces better fiscal habits.

Sketching & Prototype

As a first stage in the design, I focused on two sections:

• The Home Screen: that will have summary data of the user's financial status

• Savings Input Screen: to show the month-to-month savings input and the resulting long-term trend data.

After a rapid sketching session to ideate on possible solutions, below is the resulting paper prototype. This iteration performed poorly during usability testing as my attempts to use prompts to direct attention and force actions confused and frustrated users. 

The second paper prototype performed better as I removed the prompts, simplified the steps and relied on the summary page to show relationships: the zero-sum concept.

Retrospective & Next Steps

The second paper prototype tested well as users found the summary screen meaningful and the zero-sum concept apparent in the design of the Savings Input screens (two on the right). However, there are several other important flows in the application that needs to be designed to provide Budget-Me as a full mobile solution. Below are the key next steps for this project:

• Onboarding and Setup: The ease of use in setting up the budget when a user first opens the app will be important in keeping users engaged in the product. Below are some key considerations:
  • Automatically Linked Accounts Vs. Manual Entry of Purchases: The former is easier for most people but a manual entry method can be more beneficial in helping users be more budget conscious. The app would likely offer both options in order to have the widest reach. 
  • Desktop Setup Process Only or Mobile as Well: At this point, i'm not certain if it would be best to have users setup the account on the desktop only or design for mobile as well. 
• Design of the expense log: Users need to access the expense log to see details, add entries and make changes. 
• Accounting for multiple accounts: Users need easy ways to view both the summary and details of each account that is tied to the application.