Through my secondary research, it became clear that establishing one’s financial goals and consistently following a budget is a struggle for many. A lot of people confuse budgeting with expenses tracking. While no long-term goals are measurable or reachable without planning and tracking, maintaining an effective budgeting and expense tracking system remains a challenge, with more than half of adults not knowing what their spending is. Taking the time to create a meaningful spending plan goes beyond debits and credits, it is about creating alignment in one’s life — connecting your values to your money in a purpose-driven plan that allows one to stay in the driver’s seat.
Long-term financial goals are impossible to reach without a plan, defining milestones and tracking one’s progress. Establishing personal financial goals and consistently following a budget is a struggle for many, with more than half of adults not knowing what their exact spending is. There’s also some confusion between following a budget and expense tracking. Executing on a meaningful financial plan is about creating alignment in one’s life — connecting one’s values to one’s money in a purpose-driven way that allows one to create their desired outcomes and take ownership of how they make progress.
Evaluate how people at least 20 years away from their retirement keep track of their life expenses and balance those against their long-term financial goals.
I've received 17 responses to my survey, with 41.2% of respondents answering that keeping a personal budget never quite worked out for them, even though they've tried at least once before, and with 23.5% of respondents admitting they don't have a budget even though they know it is needed. 47.6% of respondents strongly agree and 35.3% agree that following a monthly budget and expense tracking is vital for establishing financial stability.
Six people who fit the target demographics were then interviewed, I focused on discussing their financial strategies, pitfalls and goals.
"I don't I know off the top of my head how much I'm spending."
"I like seeing the tools because it shows me where my money goes."
"I don't have an official way to track but I check my bank account often, sometimes multiple times a day."
"I just do it on an Excel sheet. It's because my budget is not really a big accounting exercise."
"..if I had money to save I would say that would be number one."
"For budgeting, I'm just using a template that exists like an Excel spreadsheet."
Following the interviews I’ve created affinity maps to synthesize the findings and define common themes of the problem space. My notes were organized into seven major categories, including: strategies participants know and use for budgeting, tracking expenses, and growing their savings; setbacks and rewarding experiences of their budgeting journeys.
According to these themes empathy maps were created for two unique types of users: inconsistent saver and steady mover.
My empathy maps became two personas, which I referred back to throughout the rest of the project: Nick, the wishful saver from Chicago, NY, and Sam, the steady mover, who is on the speed track to early retirement.
Wishful saver - Nick is a digital marketer working on a few freelance projects simultaneously, because his income is inconsistent, Nick finds it hard to maintain a comprehensive monthly budget, and feels he doesn’t make enough money to save.
Steady mover - Samantha is a successful professional in the IT industry and has been actively building her independent wealth for some time. She follows a plan and has a monthly budget for investments, however, she finds it hard to measure the efficiency of her strategy and is generally concerned with data privacy.
I created a few HMW statements to start working on generating solutions and keep my focus on the right problems to solve.
With my problem statements in mind, I began sketching out ideas tackling those. I used my research insights to establish a conceptual approach and look for solutions that would work for users.
User stories are foundational to defining a common language and establishing a mental model of the the project. User stories help me empathize more with the target groups. With the user stories, I then started working on the MVP by sorting the stories from highest to lowest priority to create fundamental values for users.
As a user, I want to:
Using the problem statements and user stories, I've identified and mapped out the key functionality needed for the app. I've create a sitemap to align IA, functional features and UI elements.
After completing the sketches, I chose Figma to bring my designs to life with low-fidelity wireframes. These frames highlight the layout of the main screens and the key features of the app, as an additional benefit later on they can be used to as layout for ghost loaders of onTrack app screens.
Second round of lo-fi wireframes were completed next to flush out finer details of the screens and the information content seen by the user.
In developing the style guide, the primary focus was on creating a cohesive, accessible, and visually appealing user interface that would foster strong brand's identity. The chosen color palette, featuring shades of teal and white as primary colors, along with accent hues like green, brick red and navy was selected to evoke a sense of trust, professionalism, and energy. These colors not only establish a strong visual identity but also ensure sufficient contrast for readability and accessibility. The inclusion of various shades of gray provides the necessary versatility for backgrounds and text, creating a balanced and harmonious design.
Typography choices were made to enhance readability and hierarchy within the application. The combination of Catamaran Bold for main headings and Lato for secondary headings and body text strikes a balance between modernity and clarity. This typographic system ensures that important information stands out, while body text remains legible across different devices and screen sizes. Button designs and iconography were crafted to support intuitive navigation and user interactions, with a focus on simplicity and functionality. The onTrack wordmark encapsulates the brand's forward-thinking approach, using clean lines and a subtle arrow motif to symbolize progress and direction.
After completing the sketches, I chose Figma to bring my designs to life with low-fidelity wireframes. These frames highlight the layout of the main screens and the key features of the app, as an additional benefit later on they can be used to as layout for ghost loaders of onTrack app screens.
