WISEWALLET
Wisewallet
A streamlined budgeting app that simplifies financial management through automation, customizable features, and clear insights, helping young adults build confidence in their financial decisions.
ROLE
UX Researcher
TIMELINE
tEAM
Raksha Hungund
Anna Vento
Kathy Wang
METHODS & SKILLS
Prototyping
Survey
Usability testing
User Interviews
TOOLS
Overview / Summary
WiseWallet is a budgeting app designed to tackle the financial management challenges faced by young adults aged 18–30. While numerous budgeting tools exist, users often experience frustrations with manual tracking, rigid features, and overwhelming visuals.
Leveraging Figma for iterative prototyping and usability testing, my team and I created a solution that prioritizes automation, customization, and simplicity. By conducting a thorough research process including competitive analysis, surveys, and usability testing, we gained key insights that shaped our app's design. WiseWallet empowers users to track spending effortlessly, adjust budgets dynamically, and build sustainable financial habits with ease and confidence.
Understanding the Problem Space
- Competitive Analysis: Evaluated existing budgeting tools to identify strengths and gaps
- Survey: Collected quantitative data on financial habits and preferences
- Interviews: Gathered in-depth insights into user behaviors, motivations, and challenges
Key Findings:
1. Clear and Actionable Visualizations: Users value financial insights but prefer simple, non-overwhelming visuals and dashboards
2. Flexibility is Essential: Users want tools that adapt to irregular incomes and changing financial situations
3. Manual Tracking is Tedious: Automation is critical to reducing time and effort
Problem Statement
Despite the spread of budgeting apps, many young adults continue to struggle with managing their finances effectively. Existing tools fail to address key pain points such as ease of use, transparency, and adaptability to users’ unique financial situations. These gaps often lead to frustration, low engagement, and financial mismanagement.
Solving the Problems through Design
Problem: Manual Tracking Is Tedious
"I used to mainly add things in the app in an app, and that was way too much work." - Participant
- Integrated Plaid, a secure platform, to link bank accounts and automate transaction imports
- Designed automated categorization features that assign expenses to default categories, with the option for users to edit or approve changes for better control
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Problem: Inflexibility for Unique Financial Needs
Participants with irregular incomes, such as freelancers and part-time workers, highlighted the inability of existing tools to adapt to their fluctuating financial situations.
- Enabled users to create and customize categories, ensuring alignment with unique financial habits, such as separating "Groceries" from "Dining Out"
- Introduced dynamic budgeting features that allow users to reallocate funds between categories to accommodate overspending or fluctuating income
Problem: Visualizations Are Helpful but Can Be Overwhelming
"I want to see my trends but not so much that it's overwhelming." - Participant
- Focused on clear, minimalistic visuals, such as bar charts, allowing users to easily interpret their financial data
- Added customization options to let users decide which metrics are most relevant to them
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Problem: Overwhelming Dashboard
Early prototypes included dashboards that repeated information found on other pages, leading to redundancy. "This page doesn’t tell me anything new." - Participant
- Replaced the dashboard with a "Plan Page" that consolidates actionable insights, such as remaining budgets, spending trends, and personalized recommendations
Problem: Unintuitive Interface
Dropdown menus for re-categorizing expenses were found to be confusing in early usability tests.
- Replaced dropdown menus with overlays, which improved clarity and usability for categorizing expenses
Final Design
Key Features:
- Automated Tracking: Bank account integration through Plaid automates transaction imports and categorization
- Personalized Onboarding: Transparent explanations and flexible customization during setup
- Plan Page: A consolidated hub for actionable insights, spending trends, and recommendations
- Dynamic Budgeting: Real-time adjustments across categories to adapt to user needs
- Clear Visualizations: Simplified bar and pie charts for tracking trends effectively
- Streamlined Categorization: Improved workflows with overlays for expense management
Prototype Link
Reflection
WiseWallet was the result of a thorough, user-centered design process that tackled core pain points for young adults managing their finances. This project underscored the importance of balancing automation with user control and simplifying complex workflows to create a truly impactful solution. By integrating tools like Plaid and focusing on iterative design in Figma, we were able to deliver a product that not only meets immediate financial needs but also fosters long-term engagement and trust.
Next Steps
Broader Testing:
Conduct additional usability testing with a more diverse participant pool to validate the design across different demographics
Advanced Features:
Explore adding collaborative budgeting tools for joint expenses and additional financial goal-setting options