Defining the problem
Financial literacy among college students is at an all-time low, with 67% of Gen Y having less than 3 months of emergency funds, 1/4 of millennials spending more than they earn, and more than 1/6 students in the US not reaching baseline level of financial literacy.
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Over the years, the chances of Americans paying off their debt have started and stayed lower than the total debt. American consumers reportedly have a total of $11.74 trillion in debt.
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Post-2009, Texas saw a dramatic decrease in financial literacy compared to the entirety of the US, and repeatedly is seen to have a lower rate than the US as a whole.
How I approached research
I conducted 10 Interviews with UTD students and 18 survey responses. I discovered that many students are mostly unconfident in their budgeting skills and general financial literacy. Additionally, all 18 students responded that they are responsible for budgeting their finances.
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Overall, students are alone in their responsibility with little to no help from those around them and are often overwhelmed or stressed about their present and future financial situations.
Meet the Persona
Meet Caleb Payne, a senior in the school of Arts, Technology, and Emerging Communications. His dreams are to start a new business, get a car, and move out of his single dorm room.
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He has a problem, though. He is part of a fraternity, and they tend to go out to eat and drink a lot, which strains his wallet. He is stressed and unsure how to create a proper balance with his finances and social life, so that he won't be so deep in debt and cut from the fraternity.
User Journey Map
The user will be coming from a place of stress, anxiety, and loneliness. The app will help guide the user from the moment they create an account, set goals, and link any accounts.
Prototyping
We sketched and developed prototypes which we then used to conduct user testing with fellow classmates and took note on feedback for the final design.
Final Design: Home
With the feedback provided from classmates, we developed the final design prototypes in Figma.
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The Home screen will be a dashboard showing the user their spending within the month, categorized and displayed as a circular chart.
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At the bottom, there are financial learning tips for the user, which include general information. If users finish reading through these tips, they may save them to read it again later or they can mark it as finished, and the tips will be deleted off of their page.
Spending Tracker
If the user wants details of a specific transaction (in this example being Starbucks), they can check into the specifics, and the app will show the total monthly spending and specific transaction names.
At the very bottom is a link to a financing tip based on the type of transactions. For example, an entertainment transaction will provide tips on monthly budgeting.
Loans Tracker
When the user wishes to check on their loans, the loans page will initially show the total amount of loans and then display the categories of the loans the user still owes.
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If the user wishes to pay off (partly or in full) a specific loan, our app allows them to click on a specific loan category to check the total for that category and view loan details if there are any separate loans within the category. For example, if it is a educational loan, the user would have separate loans based on each semester (or year). At the bottom, there will be specific financial or budgeting tips based on the type of loan.
Savings Goal
For users that aspire to save up for a goal, the app provides a tool that enables them to build healthy financial habits to achieve their desired savings goal. Creating these goals is simple, with options to categorize the type of item they wish to save for and custom-create a goal amount.
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Users will then receive weekly reminders of these goals, along with a budget to follow so they can reach their target. The app also provides tips along the way.
Key Performance Indexes
To identify success in our app, we can measure it through high praise in reviews, satisfaction surveys, and user growth.
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Another possible metric would be user geolocation, as this app, although catered to UTD students, can be used by many other college students around the country.
Whoosh~
Feel free to reach out to me on either LinkedIn or simply email down below if you have any questions or opportunities for me! ;)
