Background Story - Manuela
When I was young, my dad always told me and taught me the importance of money. Did I fully understand at a young age? Not entirely. I knew money could get you certain items you wanted in life, a lot of needs and wants. Growing up I would always try my best to save my money but often got sidetracked and purchased a sweater or two from the mall.
Learning the value of money is something that isn’t normally taught, or it’s touched upon briefly. My inspiration in learning how to save money came from friends and my family. Being young and adjusting to high school, I didn’t understand how hard it would be to save money or how important understanding the fundamentals would be when you got older.
The Unique Value
THE PROBLEM: College students aren't taught or informed about financial literacy. Students look into learning about the importance of financing when a problem arises. This results in students not knowing or understanding the basic financial skills to succeed in college and prepare themselves afterward.
VALUE PROPOSITION: Fundify is a mobile service that helps college students understand the fundamentals of budgeting and saving money in a fun and interesting way, unlike competitors such as Qapital, Buddy, and EveryDollar.
The Solution
Fundify is a mobile application designed for college students and incoming students, aiming to educate them on finances and saving strategies. The app provides a multitude of organizational tools such as goal-setting and budgeting features to support their future success beyond their collegiate year.
Fundify's Design Process
Fundify’s Design Process resulted in plentiful research in Fall 2023 into Spring 2024. The first semester of Senior project was dedicated to finding a problem, discovering how to solve the problem, researching, and conducting surveys and interviews. This led to creating the key personas, and users, and discovering the target audience and our competition. In Spring 24’ Manuela focused on creating wireframe sketches, creating a storyboard, understanding key interactions, developing low-fidelity wireframes, and focusing on user testing to achieve the final product
The Research
Throughout the iteration of Fundify, Manuela conducted surveys and interviews to gather user feedback. The surveys focused on understanding the knowledge current college students possess about budgeting and saving their money.
Survey 1 | Financial Impact on Mental Health
Ten questions were listed for the first survey which focused more on budgeting resources and student's mental health alongside financial spending. After the first survey, Manuela focused more on financial questions to get a better understanding of the current problem.
Survey 2 | Fundify - Deep Dive
Survey 2 focused on the features users normally utilize in their banking app and what features they would look for in a budgeting application.
What features do you wish were added to your banking app but currently aren’t available? Budgeting feature, more graphics/interactive, and making the application neatly organized.
Key Interview Quotes
Listed below are key quotes from the interviews Manuela conducted. With the help of the interviews and surveys, Manuela was able to develop three thought-out personas.
Personas
Three personas were created from the current data provided in surveys and interviews. The three personas were a New Budgeter, an Unknown Budgeter, and a Well-Known Budgeter. They stood for students who were Beginners and Advanced within the application. Each persona includes a journey map and empathy map to showcase their journey without utilizing the application.
Fundify's Storyboard
Manuela developed a storyboard to showcase how users will be able to utilize Fundify. The story focused on her three personas and their journey to utilizing the app to meet their needs.
Interaction Models
The Interaction Model follows a set of steps for a user to be successful while using Fundify! The structure of the interaction model was followed throughout the creation of the application.
Information Architecture
The Information Architecture explain the user requirements and workflow while utilizing the application by focusing heavily on interactions.
Fundify UI Sketches
Manuela created UI sketches to view how she wanted the application to look before beginning user testing. Her sketches were a combination of ideas and different forms of inspiration compared to what has already been created. Below are some of the sketches Manuela created which developed into Grayscale Wireframes.
Gray Scale Comps
Below are Low-Fidelity grayscale comps Manuela created before creating her High-fidelity screens and moving to User Testing. Manuela experimented with different ideas for how the application would fit the user's needs.
User Testing (Part 1)
Manuela was able to conduct user testing on six users to see if Fundify was easily accessible and deemed user-friendly for current college students. She conducted two sessions for user testing with her Hi-Fidelity wireframes before making changes to the final design.
Hi-Fidelity Prototype
Below are some key screens important to create Fundify. To view the full prototype on Figma please click the button below to access the remainder of the screens.
UI Style Guide
Marketing Strategy
Fundify’s marketing strategy focused on developing flyers and ads within SUNY and CUNY schools. Introducing the application to colleges within the area is the best way to find more users. Discovering student ambassadors who can help promote Fundify and film promotional videos can help the success of Fundify. Filming videos for TikTok or Instagram reels can help gain more traction towards the application. With the help of students, Fundify can soon be introduced to students outside of SUNY and CUNY. She wants to introduce Fundify to more colleges to help improve engagement and help those who are not aware of the fundamentals.
Conclusion - Takeaways
As Senior Project II comes to a close, Manuela would like to explore the possibility of creating additional screens and features for Fundify. The current application was solely designed for users who are new to budgeting and have never explored it before. Manuela will develop screens tailored for users who already have some level of financial knowledge. She also intends to increase user engagement with Fundify.
To achieve this, Manuela plans to raise awareness about Fundify among SUNY and CUNY schools. By doing so, she hopes to emphasize the importance of financial literacy. High school or college students need to have some form of financial education to prepare them for the future. Introducing this application to current college students will help them understand the importance of financial planning, managing their payments, and avoiding reckless spending.
However, for now, Manuela wants to focus on further analyzing the features of the current application. She wants users to learn and understand how budgeting and goal setting can help them in the future. The impact this will have on them.