Values Spending App

Investor • Fintech • Figma • Prototype

An illustrative sketch of a flower

SUMMARY

  • The external financial planning app Conquest would provide the “engine” for a retail investor portal, while the Wove team would determine UX and visual experience
  • The quick design turnaround I gave was significant for this multi-party partnership with USAA and Conquest

MY ROLE

Studio designer, collaborating with: lead designer, product manager

Bridging the gaps between an external planning engine and a consumer portal

The financial planning program Conquest was going to be used as a bridge between our client USAA and their banking clients. By integrating Conquest into Wove, an advisory platform, USAA advisors would be able to use their full suite of tools while showing their own retail clients a synced investor portal.

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

An illustrative sketch of a flower
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The original content and experience was not created for end investors (i.e. normal consumers) in mind

After trying to sync apps together to get that holistic picture (only for those integrations to disconnect), I gave up and went back to my manual spreadsheet and juggling all of my monthly and annual values together.

 

In conversation with other women, I found that many of them were in charge of money decisions in their household. But of those who had financial interest and acumen, many still didn’t appear to have plans for longer-term financial planning.

 

I got curious about what kind of tool could be built to help women in my position (working, primary earners, and the lead on financial decisions) have enough insight to achieve their goals.

 

I created a short list of items I’d personally want a financial app to have, then set out to survey the women around me about their own financial roles and interests.

The top-level goal: optimize the experience for laypeople, instead of the financial experts

Some quick wins for the experience became clear:

  • If the client has already supplied the data to their advisor elsewhere, use that
  • For all clients, reduce the required onboarding questions to the bare minimum
  • Give data visualizations and related pathway recommendations only once helpful--otherwise the lack of upward linear progression in a graph becomes a distressing distraction
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The MVP pathway was pared down to focus on Retirement planning, and the onboarding content would go on to be even further reduced

Quick wins

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

A great start to this multi-party partnership

As with many projects in a large financial institution, the project is still in progress for full deployment, with plans for a beta group of USAA advisors and their clients.

 

The quick turnaround I gave on this mobile-first effort was significant for this partnership, and I look forward to learning more about consumer behavior and feedback to continuously improve this area of the advisor’ experience.

nicoley.me

product designer specialized in fintech, SaaS, CRM

Values Spending App

Investor • Fintech • Figma • Prototype

An illustrative sketch of a flower

Bridging the gaps between an external planning engine and a consumer portal

The financial planning program Conquest was going to be used as a bridge between our client USAA and their banking clients. By integrating Conquest into Wove, an advisory platform, USAA advisors would be able to use their full suite of tools while showing their own retail clients a synced investor portal.

SUMMARY

  • The external financial planning app Conquest would provide the “engine” for a retail investor portal, while the Wove team would determine UX and visual experience
  • The quick design turnaround I gave was significant for this multi-party partnership with USAA and Conquest

MY ROLE

Studio designer, collaborating with: lead designer, product manager

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

An illustrative sketch of a flower
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The original content and experience was not created for end investors (i.e. normal consumers) in mind

After trying to sync apps together to get that holistic picture (only for those integrations to disconnect), I gave up and went back to my manual spreadsheet and juggling all of my monthly and annual values together.

 

In conversation with other women, I found that many of them were in charge of money decisions in their household. But of those who had financial interest and acumen, many still didn’t appear to have plans for longer-term financial planning.

 

I got curious about what kind of tool could be built to help women in my position (working, primary earners, and the lead on financial decisions) have enough insight to achieve their goals.

 

I created a short list of items I’d personally want a financial app to have, then set out to survey the women around me about their own financial roles and interests.

The top-level goal: optimize the experience for laypeople, instead of the financial experts

Some quick wins for the experience became clear:

  • If the client has already supplied the data to their advisor elsewhere, use that
  • For all clients, reduce the required onboarding questions to the bare minimum
  • Give data visualizations and related pathway recommendations only once helpful--otherwise the lack of upward linear progression in a graph becomes a distressing distraction
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The MVP pathway was pared down to focus on Retirement planning, and the onboarding content would go on to be even further reduced

Quick wins

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

A great start to this multi-party partnership

As with many projects in a large financial institution, the project is still in progress for full deployment, with plans for a beta group of USAA advisors and their clients.

 

The quick turnaround I gave on this mobile-first effort was significant for this partnership, and I look forward to learning more about consumer behavior and feedback to continuously improve this area of the advisor’ experience.

nicoley.me

product designer specialized in fintech, SaaS, CRM

Values Spending App

Investor • Fintech • Figma • Prototype

An illustrative sketch of a flower

Women often control the household spending, but many don’t have an actionable plan for long-term financial goals

The financial planning program Conquest was going to be used as a bridge between our client USAA and their banking clients. By integrating Conquest into Wove, an advisory platform, USAA advisors would be able to use their full suite of tools while showing their own retail clients a synced investor portal.

SUMMARY

  • Women are often the lead on household budgeting and projecting on spending, but don’t always know how best to achieve long-term goals
  • With quantitative research, I designed a mobile app specifically targeting women who want to make plans for their future in regards to finances

MY ROLE

Studio designer, collaborating with: lead designer, product manager

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

An illustrative sketch of a flower
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The original content and experience was not created for end investors (i.e. normal consumers) in mind

After trying to sync apps together to get that holistic picture (only for those integrations to disconnect), I gave up and went back to my manual spreadsheet and juggling all of my monthly and annual values together.

 

In conversation with other women, I found that many of them were in charge of money decisions in their household. But of those who had financial interest and acumen, many still didn’t appear to have plans for longer-term financial planning.

 

I got curious about what kind of tool could be built to help women in my position (working, primary earners, and the lead on financial decisions) have enough insight to achieve their goals.

 

I created a short list of items I’d personally want a financial app to have, then set out to survey the women around me about their own financial roles and interests.

The top-level goal: optimize the experience for laypeople, instead of the financial experts

Some quick wins for the experience became clear:

  • If the client has already supplied the data to their advisor elsewhere, use that
  • For all clients, reduce the required onboarding questions to the bare minimum
  • Give data visualizations and related pathway recommendations only once helpful--otherwise the lack of upward linear progression in a graph becomes a distressing distraction
An illustrative sketch of a flower

The MVP pathway was pared down to focus on Retirement planning, and the onboarding content would go on to be even further reduced

Quick wins

I used my own experience as a retail investor to determine the most likely data that could generate a progress chart: income, cash saved, frequency of deposits, and risk tolerance. I validated these data points with my product counterpart, who confirmed that those points are necessary to generate any sort of projection with a financial model.

 

With this knowledge in hand, I tallied the new required onboarding screens to only three short pages, with a total of six data points among them. The original experience hovered closer to around 40 different required form fields. By substantially reducing this level of absolutely required data, we theorized we could alleviate the high risk of drop-off.

 

I also made specific content recommendations, including the type of language and the built-in numerical scoring around the client’s financial “health” and viability of accomplishing their goals. I reasoned that getting a seemingly arbitrary percentage score was unlikely to give clients a clear understanding of meeting their goals.

A great start to this multi-party partnership

As with many projects in a large financial institution, the project is still in progress for full deployment, with plans for a beta group of USAA advisors and their clients.

 

The quick turnaround I gave on this mobile-first effort was significant for this partnership, and I look forward to learning more about consumer behavior and feedback to continuously improve this area of the advisor’ experience.

  • Other projects

  • Landing Pages for Finance of America Reverse

    Growth design • Marketing • UX

    Multi-site IA Audit for Finance of America Reverse

    Brand sites • Conversion rate • UX

nicoley.me

product designer specialized in fintech, SaaS, CRM

Values Spending App

Investor • Fintech • Figma • Prototype

An illustrative sketch of a flower

Women often control the household spending, but many don’t have an actionable plan for long-term financial goals

After years of tracking my own important financial numbers, big and small, I realized I didn’t have an easy way to make those separate values link together. My grocery expenses and my investment portfolio are all part of my finances--but was there a way to make them relate to each other?

SUMMARY

  • Women are often the lead on household budgeting and projecting on spending, but don’t always know how best to achieve long-term goals
  • With quantitative research, I designed a mobile app specifically targeting women who want to make plans for their future in regards to finances

MY ROLE

Product designer, researcher

After trying to sync apps together to get that holistic picture (only for those integrations to disconnect), I gave up and went back to my manual spreadsheet and juggling all of my monthly and annual values together.

 

In conversation with other women, I found that many of them were in charge of money decisions in their household. But of those who had financial interest and acumen, many still didn’t appear to have plans for longer-term financial planning.

 

I got curious about what kind of tool could be built to help women in my position (working, primary earners, and the lead on financial decisions) have enough insight to achieve their goals.

 

I created a short list of items I’d personally want a financial app to have, then set out to survey the women around me about their own financial roles and interests.

Filler caption

Despite varying incomes, some broad patterns were immediately clear

Of the dozen women I surveyed, 75% confirmed they were the primary decision-maker on financial choices in their household. And even with varying experiences and incomes, every participant expressed an interest in growing their financial habits.

 

Several of those financial habits included:

  • Increasing investment contributions
  • Paying off consumer debt
  • Confidence in retiring well
  • Enjoy money without stress or guilt

 

Of the eight total habits I listed, all could be reasonably representative across multiple income brackets. One of the surprising results I noted was that “Enjoying money without stress or guilt” was most prevalent among both the lowest earners (under $50K) and the highest earners ($200-249K) in the group. And across the board at all incomes was the sentiment that they “felt like there wasn’t enough money.”

Values-based spending vs. reactionary spending

To me, seeing that sentiment repeated across vast income tiers highlighted even more glaringly the need for 1) Value determination and, 2) Specific spending plans for those values.

 

I could see that while this group of women dutifully tracked and were aware of expenses, the majority did not report having step by step plans for future expenses. While I can’t account for all of the variables that contribute to financial stress, I theorized the lack of actionable data (with a long-term lens) makes stress and fear-based behavior even easier to fall into.

 

I also asked about the different mobile or desktop apps that participants were already using, if any. A wide array of finance-related apps were mentioned, which included traditional banks, credit monitoring, investment, and budgeting platforms, often in combination. That reaffirmed to me that, similar to my experience, most women were using a combination of financial tools to get the clearest picture.

Filler caption

Initial prototype

Armed with the values that these women had reported as areas in which they want to spend money, I designed simple flows to show what seems to be missing in current finance apps: how today’s money can be spent for tomorrow’s vision.

 

I know that data alone can’t change behavior and mindsets. So, I wanted to try an interface that gave women enough information on spending while affirming the “votes” she cast for her chosen values.

Filler caption

Feedback was iffy

Filler paragraph

Final rounds of design resulted in participants reporting they “would spend more freely” if they had this app

Final rounds of design resulted in participants reporting they “would feel more confident in my weekly spending” if they had this app

  • Other projects

  • Landing Pages for Finance of America Reverse

    Growth design • Marketing • UX

    Multi-site IA Audit for Finance of America Reverse

    Brand sites • Conversion rate • UX