Student Financial Hub
Overview
Bank of America partnered with Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) to hire a team of Interns to develop a student focused application. The application was meant to improve student financial literacy and confidence.
Problem
Student's feel inexperienced in managing their finances, wishing to extend their knowledge base and locate more resources.
Solution
Address students' financial inexperience by providing a central location for financial education and resources, helping them gain knowledge and make informed decisions.
Methods
Research
This project began with considerable amount of user research, primarily through surveys and interviews. My job in this process was reviewing/synthesizing research results and conducting a competitive analysis.
User Research
Goals
Determine the financial confidence of current VCU students while identifying areas of desired improvement.
Better understand the background and needs of students.
Methods
A user survey was conducted with 126 VCU students that focused on financial literacy and confidence.
User interviews were conducted with 19 VCU students to gain more insight into their financial background and confidence.
Findings
Competitive Analysis
I researched educational tools such as Invesco's "How Not to Suck at Money", Bank of America's "Better Money Habits", Duolingo, and Khan Academy. The most successful applications had a healthy balance between information and interaction. They also gave users opportunities to practice the topics they were learning.
Early Design
Team Ideation & Wireframing
The team ideated and wireframed possible solutions together. Through this process, we determined that we should create two primary features. A Learn feature, to teach users financial principles, and an interactive tool for students to practice financial decision making.
Low Fidelity Design
I worked on low fidelity designs of our two features to determine their functionality and overall layout.
Career Snapshot Features
A view of life after university
Budgeting education
Compare post graduation plans
Learn Features
Organized financial learning content
Ordered content with autonomy
Interactive quizzes and activities
Prototyping
Home & Career Snapshot
The Career Snapshot tool was designed to give students a look at their potential budget and income after graduation. Students would set the desired job, location, and how they wanted to live. Based on that information, we would simulate a budget. The home page was meant to incentivize learning while providing easy navigation for users.
Learn Feature
The Learn feature was comprised of financial literacy content organized into categories with interactive quizzes. To ensure the functionality for a variety of student backgrounds, we organized the content so it would guide users through, but still allow users to skip ahead if they already felt comfortable with a topic. The topic hierarchy was chosen based on user interest that was determined during our research.
User Testing
To create the final designs, we organized user testing with our prototypes. I took a lead during this phase, spending most of my time organizing participants, creating the calendly sign up form, and conducting interviews. I primarily took up the role of interviewer, gently guiding the users through our prototypes and asking questions.
Testing Insights
Implementing Insights
Due to our findings, we worked on developing a budgeting feature and redesigning the Career Snapshot tool. Student seemed less interested in the learning content, so we put that on the backburner.
New Feature
A budgeting tool for student’s current finances
Track spending & set goals
Redesign
Renamed Career Snapshot to What if for clarity
Designed to be more consistent with commonly used tools
Final Designs
On-Boarding & Home Page
We incorporated a simple on-boarding that informs users of functionality with engaging graphics. The Home page design easily allows users to navigate between the apps primary functions.
Budgeting Tool
The Budgeting tool provides students with a place to track their spending and income, set financial goals, and keep track of their bank account balances. This was a primary user interest based on our user testing.
What-If
The What-if tool allows users to compare different potential jobs and living locations after graduation.
Clear functionality, easy to see average salary and cost of living
Users are able to compare different paths
Helps students make career decisions
Final Testing Results - Validation
We ran a final round of user testing with our designs. The testing largely validated our choices, showing much more overall positive feedback and increased enjoyment of the apps functionality.
What Would Be Next
This project was planned to continue for another semester of university, ideally another year. However, due to internal restructuring at the bank, the project was put on indefinite hiatus.
Implement Findings
In the final round of testing, some our users found the graphics and terms confusing. I would like to iterate on these to clarify the designs.
Further Testing
As our final round of testing was smaller and focused more on the budgeting tool, I would like to conduct further testing on the What-If tool and Learning Modules.
Connect to VCU
We found in our research that very few students are familiar with the financial resources that the university offers. I would like to make sure our Financial Hub actually helps students utilize everything VCU has to offer.