Custom budget feature into the existing OCBC banking mobile app
Help millennials to have financial discipline!
Birth of the feature
With just a few months to go before the new year, happen to hang out with some of my friends after a long time. We are a group of different demographics of working adults who just moved to Singapore to start a career. Someone brought the idea of going for a trip together during the festival season in February 2020 and that exciting chats with all the route planning and places to venture continued for some time till the budget hit our heads. We all backed out one by one and ended up to picnic under the stars in East Coast Park (Singapore).
That night I kept thinking about everything my 6th-grade school teacher told us about traveling and how that expands our knowledge. But Schooling and University never really taught anything about how to execute even when committed to tight work schedules and how to prepare by solidifying financial foundations.
Few said if you like to see the world take a break from work… and rent a bike in Thailand just to go with the flow for years. It sounded like bad advice for me. Jeopardizing my career to fulfill my travel desire is not an option to expand my wings. I wanted stability in life.
Before I start planning for the trip, it is important to take a look at where I stand financially and how to powerup my saving abilities.
A closer look at my expenses and savings be like,
Wait! What! My mom laughs at me if I tell her that I’m still doing manual budgeting, expense calculations, and bundling those to keep safe in the attic. Above all, me being an OCD person consider this as fun but how could I assume that my friends would do the same to save money, and together we plan a great trip! Nah…Not happening any time soon!
Quick Question for myself: How might I help my friends to save money for the trip? As a UX Designer, I took this to the next level.
We needed an app’s help to budget and set saving goals and give us the punishment (just saying) if we didn't put money in it.
I sent these suggestions to my friends and everyone came up with different drawbacks. They were,
“Deep learning curve.” (Repeatedly)
“Do I need to open an account with DBS now?”
“I don’t have the trust to link my bank account to another app!”
“A few apps not even available in Singapore’s app store. lol!”
To be honest, My exploration to have a decent platform to manage personal finance got expanded and that’s the caused me to design a solution into the OCBC app.
Why OCBC?
We all had one thing in common, OCBC 360 account with the highest interest rates (yep! yep!) but it didn’t have budgeting features for our styles and goals.
SIDENOTE: I am not affiliated nor was I hired by OCBC bank to complete this feature. This was done to help me flex my UX skills.
Challenge
Help millennials to have financial discipline!
My high-level goals were to:
- To revamp the personal finance management feature that embeds well and smoothly with the rest of the OCBC app.
- Create a platform for trust and deeper engagement.
Research
Here is the link to my market research which was posted early.
I listed the top 15 budgeting apps in the market, downloaded everything on my mobile to explore competitor's patterns. I picked a few among those and linked my bank account to see how they interact.
Insights
Every app is designed to solve a focused user group of how they prefer to handle their money, the best budgeting app depend on user style and goals. The ultimate goal of apps is to achieve good financial fitness, that is, spending less than user earning. Budget apps can also be a good motivator for folks who have tried making a budget on their own but had trouble sticking to it. But leaving people with a sense of a goal unaccomplished creates a tension they want to resolve.
Survey
I did a SurveyMonkey user research study in 2 weeks and surveyed 25+ participants of millennials in their 20’s. The questions were formed to gain insights on whether or not the OCBC account holders find their banking app useful in terms of saving, tracking, gaining insights, and investment ideas apart from transferring and paying bills.
User responses
“I do budgeting at the beginning of the month but can’t stick to it. The apps gives money insights but I don't think that one can set limitation for spending and save for goals”- MRO Manager, 20's
“I tried saving a couple of months then overspent during the shopping. Some months I totally forgot keeping aside for goals.”- Interior Designer, 20's
“The finance terminologies confuse me, most of the time I take help from my husband. But, I’m interested to know more about investments in simple terms.”-Architect, 20's
Findings
- 100% do budgeting and only 12% track their spending.
- 88% don’t do investing.
- None rely completely on the bank’s app for budget and tracking.
- 84% hesitated to link their bank account to any other apps.
Getting to know the structure of the OCBC app
I’ve created the existing preliminary information architecture of the app and proposed information architecture of the feature to visualize which screens were necessary and how they connected to others within a hierarchy.
Most importantly, I wanted to ease users into the idea of seeing this as a new, but a cohesive element to the current app. This would eliminate some of the upfront friction of feeling like there’s a lot of work involved in getting started with budgeting and creating a savings goal.
Design sketches
I sketched out a few main screens, which includes three task flows of setting the budget, setting the goal, and tracking. All the flows were focused on a fresh approach but keeping in mind to embeds well with the existing pattern of the app.
Wireframe and User flow
Based on the research, to help the user to stick to the saving goal, automated and manual goal-saving option introduced to account the user convenience rather by having only a fixed amount to save every month. This is because to provide flexibility in saving. Something is better than nothing! The main objective is to encourage saving habits. I went with the straightforward and simple flow to make my users take baby steps to attain discipline.
Prototype
Does this feature pleasant to use? Let’s take to the user.
I tested the prototype with 7 users and identified a few primary issues and responded by implementing them into the design flows.
User noticeable responses
“Site looks trendy with illustrations. I like recurring transfer. I could really benefit from using this feature.”- Gym instructor, 20’s
“The app is clean and neat. This makes my saving goals straightforward.”- Intern, 20's
Takeaway
The final result involved major iterations where core design choices were questioned and responded. This has also taught me how challenging is to build a new feature within an existing app but even more rewarding.
The outcome hit all the points which were possible only by the genuine feedback from the participants.
✔️ successfully introduced the budgeting feature to the existing app.
✔️ was very easy to use and understand.
✔️successfully introduced alerts and recurring features to encourage and help users to achieve good financial fitness.
By-Product
I gained financial knowledge which gave me a new direction to balance my lifestyle. I reduced my expenses by tracking it consciously and started investing in things that really matter is something I am very proud of. That discipline took me to Thailand on a solo trip with Matthew Karsten’s words sunk in me “Investment in travel is an investment in yourself.”
Life is much more than merely living, it’s more about experiencing things, and if given a chance help to create a unique experience for others too.
Want to learn more?
If you’d like to become an expert in UX Design, Design Thinking, UI Design, or another related design topic, then consider to take an online UX course from the Interaction Design Foundation. For example, Design Thinking, Become a UX Designer from Scratch, Conducting Usability Testing or User Research — Methods and Best Practices. Good luck on your learning journey!
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