Fi Savings

Digitizing rotational savings with a trusted network of people who agree to pool money together

ROLES & RESPONSIBILITIES

My role ranged from conducting industry research, user interviews, user research, competitive analysis, testing, wireframing and prototyping.

TOOLS

 

DURATION

22 Weeks

DISCOVERY

Redefining how Money Pooling works

The Problem Statement

Traditional money pool involves a group of people pooling a lump sum cash monthly with an intended borrower every month. There are many flaws using this method as listed blow

  • There is no way to track payment history and what borrower is taking it each month

  • Carrying a great amount of cash can consist of a huge risk and liability

  • The average American has a tough time saving money and always looking for financial help. People who have an average or bad credit score may have a tough time obtaining small loans/funding

  • The challenge for this project, as assigned by the client, was to explore the current issues users have, and create a bespoke product for creating an improved experience for Money Pooling

 

Client assumptions & hypothesis statements:

The client was very interested whether a digital solution could be used, which would be based on the ROSCA framework. The following hypothesis were made:

  • How might we increase trust so that the pool organizer could be replaced with a digital solution?

  • How might we increase security by providing users with a transaction history?

  • How might we increase a users’ credit score by removing penalties for missing payments?

  • How might we educate (and empower) users to on savings or lending?

 

User Interviews

I interviewed users to learn about the following:

  • How do you save for future vacations?

  • How many loans do you have?

  • Does your credit score limit you from obtaining loans?

  • Have you tried to obtain a personal loan?

From the user interviews, we found that users:

  • 10/15 Interviewed users use their credit cards to book vacations

  • Typical purchases included car loans, mortgages, and personal credit cards

  • 9/15 users are paying high interest on loans due to their credit score

  • 6/15 users applied for a personal loan, 3 got rejected, 3 declined due to high interest

Competitive Analysis

  • This process consisted me of conducting research of were our product stands compared to our competitors

  • It gave me a better insight of the strengths and weakness of our competitors

  • Finding out who dominates the market and why they are successful is always a good research apprach

  • This process also analyzing competitors designs, features, target audience and reviews

 
 

DEFINITION

Summarising the key themes from research

 

Persona

  • To make sure I was using a user centered approach, I gathered my research to give me a good understanding of my users

  • Creating personas helps me step out of my biases and recognize that people have different needs and expectations than me

  • When creating a persona I realized how important and useful it is to conduct a thorough user interviews to distinguish how users behave, how they think and what they want to accomplish

  • I was able to develop 2 Personas based on the research and user interviews: the savings maker and the debt payer

 

Journey Map

  • After conducting user research I put together a journey map to outline the users step by step interactions and how they feel

  • When creating the journey map l made sure I included the quantitative data which was understanding the users pain points, behavior and actions

  • For this specific app it was important to pay close attentions to areas were users might be questioning things like will my personal information be safe? Will my funds be secure?

  • The foundation of any business relies on having an efficient journey map so the customer is satisfied and will use this platform again

 

User Flow

  • Having a user flow gives you the advantage of visualizing the process and sequence a user goes through

  • This process is important because it gives you the option to change the flow before you proceed and get too deep

  • There are many different paths a user can take from start to finish which is all presented in a user flow

  • Presenting the flow of your product to project managers or stakeholders is an importaant step to obtain feedback

DESIGN

Solving the problem with user-centred design

Low-Fidelity Wireframes

  • This was very useful in the early stages of my product development as it focus mainly on the funtionality

  • It’s main goal is to simply communicate the content, layout and flow

  • Excludes colors and logos and uses shapes to image place holders to show

  • Creating low fidelity allowed me to get feedback from stakeholders on how to improve the flow and functions before I proceed

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi-Fidelity Wireframes

  • After multiple drafts of low fidelity wireframes and obtaining feedback, I started the process of creating hi fidelity wireframes

  • As shown in the hi-fi wireframes below they include colors, images and icons

  • High-fidelity wireframes make it much easier to evaluate a product’s overall design and UX

  • After the completion of hi-fidelity and approval by stakeholders, product is ready to be engineered

 
 
 
 
 
 

Usability Test

I had a few user run tests to see how efficient my product was. I gave them usability tasks which included:

  • Signing up

  • Choosing a group that best fits their needs

  • Transferring funds

  • Adjusting the settings

Fortunately everything went well as planned, and user feedback was positive. As this app is still in development there are many moving pieces which will require us to run more usability testing

 
 

Conclusion

As a startup, we were limited on the resources and man power we had which took more time than usual to make significant process. It was a huge learning curve for me. For me I had to showcase my research skills and design skills on an actual client project which I liked. It required a lot of drafts in the design process and sleepless nights conducting research on the industry and who our competitors were. The most important thing I’ve learned so far is that when trying to solve a problem there are so many factors and roadblocks that will randomly appear and you always have to be ready to take on the challenges