Case Study: Supporting Financial Literacy and Better Habits with Behavioral Design

Secondary Research

Flourish is a social entrepreneurial product, the purpose of which is helping low-income users develop better savings habits through a fun app experience using the principles of gamefication. I began the design process by researching gamefication and financial services apps.

Key Insights:

• Financial literacy correlated with financial wellbeing

  Based on this insight, I utilized a strategy of focusing on education to increase users’ financial literacy.

• Intrinsic motivation is important for long term engagement 

  Based on this insight, I utilized a strategy of providing users with a sense of accomplishment and encouragement.

• Community is important for long term engagement 

  Based on this insight, I recommended building a social structure into the app. While social features were outside the scope of my problem space, I focused on this in my suggestions for future iterations.

User Interviews

With the insights gained from secondary research informing my overall strategy, I moved on to user interviews. Flourish provided me with 5 beta test users who were available to speak with me for 30 minute Skype interviews. As Flourish had already identified that users were not using their commitment feature, I focused on understanding why this was the case.

Key Insights 

• Users were unaware of the commitment feature but having savings goals is important to them and they desire help staying motivated

• Users enjoyed that there is friction when withdrawing from the app’s savings account, acting as a motivator for continued saving

• Users experienced some confusion on the difference between money, coins, and tickets, key features in the app’s system of extrinsic motivation

The original onboarding sequence didn’t mention a savings commitment feature.

The commitment feature is shown as a bulls-eye target on a map of the user’s savings goals. It is placed in the upper right-hand corner of the map. Many users were unaware of this feature.

Based on the insights gained from user interviews, I focused on increasing the discoverability of the commitment feature and improving the onboarding process to ensure users understand how to use the app. I also consulted the team’s game designer on ways to improve the app’s reward features.

Wireframes

Based on insights gained from user interviews, I created a series of wireframes.

At this stage of the design process, I streamlined the initial screens of the onboarding sequence into a single map and added the commitment feature into the steps of the onboarding process. Users would now be prompted to commit to savings goals, but would still be able to skip this process and come back to it if needed.

In addition to the onboarding process, I focused on the user’s goals map. To increase discoverability, I moved the commitment feature from a small button in the upper right hand corner to its own tab in the navigation bar. I also flipped the orientation of the map so that the user would scroll down instead of up to increase the app’s consistency with user expectations and experiences. Finally, I added an educational popup to increase the app’s function as a financial wellbeing aid.

Usability Testing

I them completed usability testing with 5 new users who were available for 30 minute Skype interviews. Users provided valuable feedback including:

• Users thought that the app would be helpful to motivate them

• Onboarding process was somewhat long

• Users understood the app’s functions, including the commitment feature, and expressed an intention to use it

• One user skipped commitment process and expressed concerns about automatic transfers due to unpredictable finances

This last insight provided especially valuable insight into the target population of low-income users. These users may not be saving regularly not because they do not know how to use the feature, but because they are unable to commit due to financial instability.

Iteration

In response to feedback from the usability testing phase and consultation with the rest of the team, I implemented the following changes to the design:

• A streamlined commitment page in the onboarding process (reducing 4 screens into 1 longer form)

• A streamlined commitment page within the navigation bar

• XP and levels in addition to coins and savings markers (based on our game designer’s feedback that this is appropriate for the kind of skills based learning that I intend users to gain from the educational features of this app)

• Positive encouragers for user actions, to increase the user’s intrinsic motivation

Recommendations for Further Improvement

As this project was only 4 weeks long, I did not have time to implement all of the design changes I would have liked to. During the project hand off, I presented a strategy for next steps towards the app’s continued improvement:

• Consolidate savings, goals, and achievements into a central dashboard

  This would increase the user’s ease of tracking progress and act as a motivation tool. This recommendation is in line with repeated feedback that users valued the app as a motivation tool and enjoyed visually seeing their progress.

• Add notifications (behavioral nudges) to increase saving and habit of checking the app 

  This would increase the user’s long term engagement with the app and allow them to build more financially healthy habits.

• Implement social features such as leaderboards and friends/requests for support

  According to previous research, social features are helpful in creating long term engagement. Also, the target population of low-income individuals appears to be intrinsically motivated by their needs to save for the betterment of their families and may be encouraged by the ability to share their progress.