The Inspiration
I spent far too many hours calculating daily costs, bills, and utilities in spreadsheets. The idea for Payback stemmed from this issue - I wanted to create an easy way to divide group costs, one that didn’t include calculators and long spreadsheets.
I worked on a team of 4, with 1 project manager, 1 UX researcher, and 1 developer to create an app that keeps track of spending and saves you time through automatic calculations.
Understanding users views on financial matters
Complex Interactions, Personal Spending, Money Sensitivity
While Payback's core functionality is based on automated calculations, our main challenge came in the form of providing clarity on who is spending what. Through user interviews and surveys, our target demographic also expressed hesitations and stress around managing their spending themselves and struggles with staying on top of their budgets.
Research as a tool to create a friendly and inviting experiences
Our user interviews and competitor research revealed our main focus for our target audience are college students and young adults. We identified that people ages 16-32 were the most likely to split bills with their friends or families. This played a large part in influencing the overall aesthetic and tone of voice for the app.
Using color strategy to make finances more approachable
- Avoided colors typically found in finance platforms, like blue and green, to differentiate from competitors
- Leaned away from the use of red and green to avoid subconscious positive or negative color connotations
- Fun, personable design to alleviate pressures surrounding money
Color accessibility was extremely high priority for this project. I used Stark to simulate common types of colorblindness to ensure inclusivity for our data visualizations.
Promoting accountability through cost transparency
- Data visualization provides clarity around who spent what
- Group visibility helps hold users accountable for what they owe
Creating budgeting tools to keep track of overall spending
- Based on the idea of monthly credit card summaries
- Provides information on spending habits at a glance
Managing dev handoff through Zeplin
After aligning on priorities with the developers, I identified Zeplin as our handoff tool of choice for this project. It's inspection tools and notification system allowed our developers to quickly make changes and resulted in higher levels of accuracy when building out designs. In addition to importing the screens into Zeplin, I also defined the components, colors, and typography within the app as well.
The Results
Our team designed and developed Payback as a web app due to project limitations, though our team envisioned Payback as a native mobile app based on our user demographics.
Through this project, I learned to
- Be clear about scope, setting boundaries on features avoids pain points within the experience and ensures a strong foundation for projects.
- Push for accessibility, inclusivity with data visualization is often overlooked.
- Account for handoff, good documentation of assets and functionality takes time. Planning for this ahead of time ensures smooth delivery for both parties.
