Corey Howell

About

Empowering International Students for US Finances

2022, UX Designer and Researcher
Findependent is a financial advisory firm seeking to increase engagement with adults in their early to mid-20s.

WHAT The firm was looking for a mobile experience that helps this demographic overcome financial challenges and provides easy-to-use tools to improve financial health while positioning Findependent as a partner in financial planning. 
HOW
3 High-Level Objectives:

    1. Demystify financial terminology
    2. Encourage savings and investing
    3. Improve the value proposition of Findependent (What makes the company and its product attractive to customers that it helps build its revenue)

Our research led us to focus on international students due to our team’s diverse lived experience. We managed to get some in-person interviews as well as virtual to get an idea of what a minimum viable product could be.



Persona and Journey Here is one persona from our research set. We got a good idea of what the user journey looked like for this user and others like them in financial apps.



Lofi WireframingUsing our journey map and users, we ideated some features that could help Findependent stand out in the market. We designed low-fidelity wireframes with these in mind. 

 
RESULTS FROM USER TESTINGAfter we had our usability tests, we took the feedback we got and made the following changes:
  • We reviewed our overall design and made it more coordinated.
  • We scaled down on our "Jobs to be done" after we analyzed what people needed, the time, and the skill set we had.
  • We took out the investment idea, gamified savings, and hand-in-hand document assistant.
SOLUTION View our Figma prototype.

We took these rough wireframes, as well as some other ideas floating around, to the folks that we interviewed and tested usability with. We took their feedback to present a final app proposal to Findependent. 


  

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