Does Digit Teach You to Save?
Notifications and goal-setting in automatic savings apps
I saved money accidentally.
That’s what Digit, the automatic savings app, wants to you do. You sit back and let the app do the hard work of saving your money.
This month we’ll explore the social science behind the application, how it makes money, and what other techniques Digit (and you) can employ to increase retention and recall.
In this crit, we walk through the user experience and also address:
- What zebra suits have to do with saving $$
- Ways to illustrate a user’s relationship with their bank
- Magic versus effort in messaging about money
How Does Digit Make Money?
Digit collects interest on the funds you deposit.
So to an end-user, they kinda feel like a bank.
From their website:
Today, we make money like a traditional bank does, by accruing interest on the savings we hold for you.
We’re also venture-backed, and over time will be adding optional premium services and features to automate more of your financial health decisions.
Hmmmm. OK. More will be revealed, I suppose.
When and How to Bug Your Users
If you are trying to change user behavior, repetition is good because repetition is good. Especially when presented 72 hours (or less) after you’ve shown them the information for the first time.
But first let’s take a step back to look at how memories are made. A memory is like a piece of molten plastic, and only a few precious memory morsels make it to long-term storage. Whether the memory sticks depend on:
- how the information is presented to you (for instance, phone numbers are “chunked” into 3 or 4 digits for easy retrieval)
- how many senses are involved with the original experience (auditory, visual, etc)
- and how often you rehearse it in the hours and days following your exposure to the information.
The repetition of information enriches the memory with deeper information, which then makes the information even easier to retrieve in the future.
This effect is called spacing, and its used pretty often in foreign language instruction (remember flash cards?).
Spacing is so powerful, expert behavioral scientist John Medina says we should design all learning experiences around it:
In the future school, every third or fourth day would be reserved for reviewing the facts delivered in the previous 72 to 96 hours. During these “review holidays,” previous information would be presented in compressed fashion. Students would have a chance to inspect the notes they took during the initial exposures…
But Digit, the info you deliver needs to be personally relevant to your users.
In other words, not zebra costumes.
Instead of 300 different ways of saying “hello” I’d make the following tweaks to maximize the potential for long-term engagement:
- Impact. Do Digit users save more than non-users?
- Motivation. How much would a user have saved if they kept up Digit for the next week, month (or year)?
- Related benefits. What effect saving patterns have on other parts of user’s lives?
- Peer models for saving. Who around the user kickstarted businesses or new products with small amounts of money?
If Digit started with an assumption like “saving money is hard” instead of “we give you magic” they could extend the engagement ladder far higher.
As it stands, there’s little utility past saving a small nest egg.
The Danger of Using Too Much Magic
I was surprised to stare at this grinding screen for a solid minute.
Oh Digit — why are you working so hard? (And showing me that your app is a trap or a maze?)
Sometimes showing the grind behind an app is good — Ryan W. Buell and Michael I. Norton at HBS refer to the “labor illusion” when the customer values a service more when they see effort.
Even just the appearance of effort.
There are examples of labor illusion in design all over the web.
For instance, Hipmunk’s spinning wheel and the gradual loading of flight prices translates to more perceived value.
That app is working hard for me, the thinking goes, so it must be doing something really useful.
But Digit, with this bummer-town maze, you’re teaching me that connecting to banks is scary and hard.
You could use that time to show me you’re working hard to save my $$ (so I don’t have to).
Okay, Let’s Take a Deeper Look…
One Product, In Search of Context
Automation is great, but towards what goal? The lack of end-game is what keeps me from using Digit past a week or two. At the moment it feels like a building block, like raw data searching for context.
When I cashed out, I got a text asking me what I was going to use the funds for, so it’s clear their product team is working towards more context. Maybe a few more rounds of user-testing would make the product speak to a more precise audience.
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