1
Discover
Understanding the project
Wych is a voice enabled, AI powered personal financial assistant app and they wanted help with conducting a market & user research and designing an onboarding process for their app. , Wych isn’ t a live project yetso to better understand it and the minimum viable product, worked closely with the client to gain insights. They shared their unique perspectives and goals for their brand through the MosCoW workshop.
Market and Competitor Research
I looked into current markets and technology trends Wych operated in and conducted a competitive analysis to find strengths and areas of opportunities for Wych within 3 specific areas:
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Financial assisting apps
Emma leverages user’s spending data to identify overlapping or unnecessary services to minimize spendings, to avoid penalty fees and offer cash rewards with activities like quizzes.
The largest selling point that Mint has is it offers unlimited credit score which would help users make purchases and take loans easier when they are in need or wish to make profitable investments
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Virtual banks
Both companies have in-app pots where users can freely separate their finances however they wish, this is completely manual.
Soon Monzo plus will be launching and it promises a marketplace where users will be able to contrast and compare utilities and other services all within the app in order to find the company that offers services that best suit the user.
Revelout has the largest uptake within the same time span of other fintech.
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Habit changing apps
Momentum leverages cross devices synchronisation so that the tool can provide notifications around the clock no matter what the user is doing or where the user is at to make sure the user stays on track; the user can also access the data through the notification page and would not require to unlock the phone or go into the app.
Way Of Life features a level of personalisation, giving the user the ability to pick and choose what habits to take on and the time frame for picking up or disposing of a habit.
Key Takeaways
- There are currently no direct competitors who offer exactly the same services as Wych plans to.
- According to YouGov, young people in the UK in particular are looking for new ways to budget and make purchases without falling into debt.
- Statcounter statistics shows that currently worldwide mobile phone traffic market share stands at 53% compared to desktop traffic at 47%. It also shows 72% of people use the android system, compared to 27% who use IOS.
- Whilst having both mobile app and desktop, most of the competitors in the market preferred mobile app to the website.
User Research
Interviewed 11 users to identify what the user behaviours and mental models are in terms of spending habits and personal financial management. The participants were recruited through Wych.
Affinity mapped our findings to produce a problem statement and to create a persona in order to have a better understanding of the user experience and users’ dissatisfactions.
Key Takeaways
- Most participants are skeptical to share their personal financial information with a third party.
- Most participants prefer to manage their finances on mobile.
- Most participants are struggling to keep track of their personal finances.
- Some participants have shown interest in other people’s spending habits.
2
Define
Problem Statement
Based on the user research, summarised the primary problem that the users are facing as following:
“Busy millennials want a simple and efficient way to manage all their finances in a single place in order to maximise savings and have a better financial overview.”
Persona
Used the findings to create a persona, representing the typical background of a user to help us understand how to help future users to complete the onboarding process efficiently.
Alex represents the primary user group of people who want to learn to manage his personal finances more efficiently and save more money. However, he doesn’t know where to start and finds it difficult to meet his savings target.
Onboarding Flow
Combined user’s expectations to produce the onboarding flow.
Onboarding flow
3
Develop
Concept Cards
Tried to discover as many different ideas as possible by simply creating a paper concept card to visualise our ideas.
We came up with 4 different concepts.
1st concept
is based on utilising the user’s goals to promote Wych’s features, showing the value of the app. Expected to promote the value of the features as well as to show how the app can help the users.
2nd concept
aimed to build trust amongst the users by showing them where and how their data will be used throughout the app.
3rd concept
acted as an extension to the second. Tried to see how much information the users are willing to provide to a third party if they were still hesitant to link their bank account. It was also hoped that by providing some information, users will get to test Wych’s features.
4th concept
is all about security. Wanted to further understand the optimal level of security that a user would want or expect from a third party financial app.
Concept Testing
Conducted 7 concept testings. The participants were recruited through Wych. The purpose was to test the initial concept and understand users' behaviours and mental models in regards to the onboarding process when they use a new app.
Key Takeaways
- Most participants consider it beneficial to learn whether an app could provide value to them at an early stage of the onboarding process.
- Most of the participants would like to know how their personal data will be used in detail.
- Most of the participants would like to have the choice of added security features, specifically PIN and biometrics.
Mid-fidelity wireframes and prototype
Having spent some time ideating, converged these 3 different concepts into a single design direction to move forward.
Finally, we created mid-fidelity wireframes by Adobe XD.
Usability testing
Conducted 14 remote usability tests with various users on the first prototype to identify potential pain points for further iteration and understand users’ views regarding the onboarding process.
The Participants were recruited through Wych.Key Takeaways
- Most participants linked their bank accounts.
- “Subscribe” button on the registration page was confusing.(Replaced by Create an account & Log in as above.)
- The PIN feature made the users feel reassured but it's position in the signing up flow was confusing.
4
Deliver
Future Recommendations
We completed immediate iterations on the prototype based on feedback we received but due to the time constraints, it was not possible to further explore certain areas that could be beneficial to the product in the longer-term.
- To strike the adequate balance between friendly and professional language, research into customer facing terminology should be conducted.
- For ease of use, implementing the bottom navigation is recommended.
- User interviews have shown that those users who are hesitant to immediately link their bank account to the app are not reluctant to provide some level of personal information, such as location and their financial goals. This information can be used to further explain the value of the product and provide a preview of personalisation features.
At the end of 4 weeks, successfully conducted user & market research and designed the onboarding user flow. Received good feedback from the client acknowledging all the improvements we had made.
Successfully managed a remote relationship with the client and stakeholders, including meetings, interviews and workshops, despite the 12 hour time difference.
It was a great feeling to work on a potentially revolutionary product, especially with such a positive and passionate team of experts.
The outbreak of the Covid-19 virus complicating lives everywhere for everyone, managed to achieve a result to be proud of.
Testimonial
“Merve excels in communication and this was evident throughout our review process. The end product benefitted from Merve’s customer-focused perspective. Merve’s technical competence showed in the quality of her work.”