On average, most millennials have yet to put any money into their retirement account, while the majority of Americans would struggle to scrounge up $1,000 in an emergency. Money can be confusing, and I wanted to create an app where young professionals could go to understand the financial options available to them to save for their future.

Phase 1: Discovery

User Research
I started this process by wanting to understand how young people currently plan for their financial future. What tools or methods they employ, along with their overall perception of financial security.

I conducted phone and in-person interviews with 6 different people. The main takeaways from these interviews were:

• Young professionals want to save for the long-term but are unsure where to start.

• They want financial information that is simple and relates to them.

• Often, when they don’t know the answer to a financial question, they’ll crowdsource by asking friends, family, or searching online.

Meet James and Grace
I used the findings to construct two personas, James & Grace, to help me understand how I can help them/my users set and achieve their financial goals.

James is a 29-year old masters student who likes to go out with friends regularly, often forgetting to add to his savings.

Grace is a financially savvy 26-year old consultant who loves to travel and see her money grow. She is aiming to have a secure financial future, where she doesn’t have to worry about money.

Phase 2: Define

Information architecture
From that initial research phase, I moved into identifying a solid set of key features and organizing a sitemap on how these features would appear within the app. Then, with the help of a few individuals and an open card sort, I was able to restructure and categorize the content in a way that was more straightforward for the user.

User Flow
I developed a flow that allowed for a seamless and cohesive user experience without dead ends. This flow categorizes two types of users: New users who can create a financial goal after onboarding, and current users who want to check in on a goal or add more.

Phase 3: Ideation

At this point, I had already gathered enough information to get started with the wireframes. As the wireframes evolved from low to more mid-fidelity, I created a visual identity that helped Penny feel friendly, trustworthy and sophisticated. Through rounds of usability testing and ideation, the product evolved into Penny, an app that allows young professionals to understand their financial options, enabling them to make the best decisions to save for their long-term financial goals.

View the high-fidelity prototype here

Takeaways & Next steps

The final prototype was positively received by users and yielded successful task completions. I enjoyed gaining insight through research and testing, further understanding both human behaviors and using that information to evolve my end product. As I continue to refine Penny a few next steps I have planned are:

• Adding in a points feature to gamify the act of reaching certain financial goal milestones to keep users motivated in achieving their goals.

• Enable automatic adjustments for goals so users don’t have to go to the effort of editing their accounts based on the recommended insights.

• Design more long-term goal options to choose from.