budget buddy
We make budgeting easy for hard working students.
For people who want to better manage their money, Budget Buddy is a mobile application solution that helps users make better financial decisions, set financial goals, and track spendings. Unlike Mint, Wally, or Personal Capital, Budget Buddy’s easy to use layout, constant feedback, and financial analytics prevents college students from getting overwhelmed when dealing with their finances and encourages them to keep track of their spendings and save money.
Problem
Process
Prototype
interviews
roles and goals
low-fidelity wireframes
logo comp
website prototype
mobile prototype
problem
Tracking spendings and managing finances as a college student is complex and difficult
As a college student with assignments, schedules, studying, and extracurriculars, adding a financial element would push me over the edge. I have always struggled with managing my money while being in school. As I honed in on the idea of a solution to this problem, I wanted to make sure I was not the only college student that felt this way.
Over the course of 3 months, I conducted several interviews and intense research to come up with a solution to the problem of successful financing as a student.
interviews
Here is a compilation of my interview findings
I conducted several interviews to learn more about what users would want to see and need. Throughout this process, I was able to identify certain pain points of users while they used certain finance apps and websites.
Interview Participants
Participant #1
18 years old, female student, has a strong financial understanding.
Participant #2
21 years old, male, student, has a poor financial understanding.
Participant #3
19 years old, male, student, has a good financial understanding.
Interview Findings
"Do you have a system for spending?"
Participant #1
"I try and only spend a fourth of my monthly allowance per week"
Participant #2
"I don't have a system in place. I don't spend money badly but when i'm hungry i'm hungry."
Participant #3
"I use a budgeting excel sheet to track my expenses"
"What obstacles have you faced while trying to budget your money?"
Participant #1
"Sometimes I spend too much on food"
Participant #2
"I don’t have a way to track my spending"
Participant #3
"I am decently well at keeping track of my budget, but I often slip out of it because I don’t have a concrete financial goal"
"How do you feel when using apps such as Mint and Walley?"
Participant #1
"I feel pretty comfortable using these types of apps but some of the features could be less confusing"
Participant #2
"Before I deleted it, the Mint app made me so anxious that sometimes I couldn't even understand how to navigate through the app"
Participant #3
"I like using Mint and Walley to check my spendings but the budgets and goals features don't seem appealing enough to use"
roles and
goals
Here is a compilation of my roles and goals
In order to gain a greater understanding of what types of users would be using this financial service, I combined a list of different types of possible people sorted by priority of their needs for using budget buddy
High-priority
As a financially uneducated student, I want to find ways to learn more about money so I can change the direction of my spending habits and instill better ones
As a first year student, I want to come into college and spend money wisely so I can create good financial habits for my future
As a busy college student, I want a way to keep track of my spendings and make financial decisions for me so I can continue focusing on my school work
Low-priority
As a financially inclined student, I want to continue budgeting and tracking my spendings so I can save and invest my money
As a fourth year student, I want to refine the way I spend money on a daily basis so I can be in a better financial place after college
As a part-time student, I want to spend time monitoring my expenses and manually inputting them so I can keep a closer track of how much of my money is being spent and where it’s going
process
How can I make making budgeting easier for college students?
After conducting research through my interviews and roles and goals findings, I felt as if I was ready to continue and enter the process phase. Throughout the process, I delved into low-fidelity wireframes, desktop designs, and logo design compilations while keeping the original problem I was trying to solve in mind.
low-fidelity wireframes
Here is a compilation of my low-fidelity wireframes
In my low-fidelity wireframes, I made sure to make the design easy to navigate and to only include necessary and digestible information to avoid bombarding the user with lots of features.
creating an account (mobile/desktop)
enter page
sign up page
link a bank page
overview page
enter page
sign up page
security page
link a bank page
overview page
logo comp
Friendly, Trustworthy, Relatable
Creating the proper logo to go along with these wireframes would give my project more life and credibility.
In order to create a tried and true logo, I attempted to come up with a human-like design that users could learn to love and trust.
I went through four iterations of possible designs before finally landing on my final logo.
prototype
prototype
A financial website and mobile application made for college students to better save their money
Analyzing the problem and the process of designing this project lead me to the final stage of budget buddy: the prototype. With the ability to create goals, make budgets, and view financial trends, I achieved my goal of creating budget buddy to be cultivated for college students and built for saving money. Enjoy budget buddy!
high-fidelity wireframes (mobile)
Live mobile prototype
high-fidelity wireframes (desktop)
