Project details are available at this page: Rupee-wise
I chose to explore the subject of budget and expense management for a design project because I was neither budgeting my monthly expenses and savings nor managing or tracking my expenses and found it hard to save money. I also thought it would be interesting to apply design research concepts to understand and learn new ways of inquiry and may be conceptualize a new idea for the design. I wanted to focus on design research for this project and apply insights, concepts to the design of an interactive app. The design research process was a new learning for me - beginning with secondary research and to look at different methods of inquiry, to define target audience, screening and the sampling process and different modes of primary research and deriving concepts from the insights from the primary users’ research.
When I started writing the initial proposal, I wasn’t too sure as to whether redesign an existing app or conceptualize one or more ideas for the design. I found that redesigning an existing app would be too limiting creatively and I would not have opportunities to define a new concept and very likely end up looking at redesign of the existing visual elements and interactive aspects of the app. So, I choose to conceptualize a new idea for the app. However, I researched a few existing apps to understand their concepts and features. Most of the existing apps had one underlining and strong concept on which they were built upon - A goal oriented budget/save for a specific goal and expense management, concept of zero-sum budgeting – “account for every dollar”, use of a metaphor like an “envelope” to categorize allocations and location based tracking of expenditure. I learnt that it’s important to design with one concept in mind and I also wanted to explore what value(s) the new app can offer. Most of the existing apps presented visualizations as charts and use of percentages to show current expenses – questioning of why an expense was high or budget was overrun was left to the user of the app to reflect and act upon.
I always refer to best selling self-help books for some good advice on a topic and having read this book “Think and Grow Rich Book by Napolean Hill”, I was wondering if I could apply ideas or inspirations from this book for the app. The author talks about how individuals can learn and train themselves to become “money conscious” and has written about how mind, thoughts, desire, persistence, habits etc., can help an individual achieve their financial goals. One of the interesting learning from the book was the author talked about aspects that would help individuals to achieve their goals by developing a desire, purpose, gain continuous knowledge on the subject that is related to their purpose or calling, develop persistence, habits and act upon the goals and plans. Understanding habits and changing or forming new habits seemed like an interesting area to explore further. The aspect of understanding habits fit well to the topic of money. The concepts of goals, plans, action (habits) as put forward by the author was relevant and I decided to use this learning to define the concept for the app.
The secondary research process that I followed helped me learn to inquire about the subject from different perspectives. The existing apps that I studied during research helped me understand what are the concepts or areas of research that the designers and developers looked at when they were conceptualizing the app. Reading a book helped me understand what experts and researchers in the subject of money management suggest individuals to practice towards reaching their goals.
Having defined a concept for the app, I defined the target users for the app - individuals who are employed and receive a monthly cash flow. I wrote down a discussion guide and conducted an interview through questionnaire via phone calls and Google Forms. Most of the responses from the primary research were directed towards how it was hard & time-consuming to budget every time. I thought it would be interesting to explore visual ways of budgeting. I also learnt from primary research that individuals wish they were really financially savvy to learn to spend, invest and save wisely.
With the insights from both primary and secondary research, I decided to focus on Goals, Plans and Action (Habits). While trying to understand habits, I thought of a concept where the users can really understand ‘why they bought what they bought’ or ‘why they spent’ which lead me to understand consumer behaviour and understanding Hedonistic (experiential) and Utilitarian (rational, task-oriented and need based) consumer behaviour. I researched further in that subject and found it really interesting as how consumer behaviour affects brands and purchasing choices and decisions. So, I wanted to use this concept of understanding behaviour in the conceptualization of my app. I wondered what if the knowledge of consumer behaviour and behavioural attitudes behind purchasing decisions used by marketers and market researchers can be brought back to the consumer itself to help them understand their habits better. When a user spends - makes a purchase or spends on experience, the app can question in a very friendly way about their purchasing decision(s) immediately after the purchase. The user of the app may choose to answer or skip. When the user chooses to record their purchase decision, they can reflect upon all their tagged purchases based on their purchase decisions to understand or correct their habits.
For the visual design of the screens, I wanted to define and use a minimalistic, less daunting visual style and choose to refer and use Google material design style guide, which is simplistic yet very usable and easily learnable to the users of the app. I made choices and decisions regarding layout, color and typography. The insights or concepts/ideas were wider in scope but I choose to design a few screens based on two concepts - Goals, Plans, Actions (Habits) and Understanding behavioural attitudes behind user purchase decisions.