Moni
Moni employs game-based rewards to inspire users in achieving their budget plans and savings goals
My Roles
User Research
UI/UX design
Design Strategy
Prototype
Duration
Oct - Dec 2022
Design Team
Yuchen Zhang, Chingwen Lin
Tools Used
Figma
Miro
ProtoPie
Qualtrics
Google Meeting
What is our Product and How it works?
Utilising gamification for consistent financial planning engagement
Young people increasingly rely on fintech products for financial management, yet many struggle to remain committed. Moni tackles this challenge by employing gamified rewards to incentivise consistent usage of Budgeting and Goal-setting features, enhancing financial management optimisation.
Business Opportunity
Gamification greatly enhances customer retention and engagement in fintech products
The Mind over Money survey found that 77% of people experience financial anxiety. However, fintech apps face challenges, with 73% of new users leaving within a week, according to a recent report. Adjust data shows day 1 retention at 24% and day 7 at 17%.
Gamification involves applying game design techniques to non-game contexts to motivate users and enhance their experience. This strategy taps into the psychological need for achievement, rewards, and recognition to improve user engagement and long-term retention.
The benefits of gamification for fintech apps:
Improved user engagement
Increased retention, stickiness, and customer loyalty
Outcomes
83% of users affirm that rewards effectively drive them to fulfil their financial plans and goals.
Increased design speed by 16% by establishing an expandable
design system in Figma.
Approach
01 - Research
Background Research
Competitive Analysis
Interview
Affinity Mapping
User Personas
User Journeys
02 - Design
Brainstorming
User Flows
Information Architecture
Wireframes
Low Fidelity Prototype
03 - Evaluate
Usability Testing
User Feedback
Design Iteration
High Fidelity
Design System
Future Steps
Research
Initial Problem Discovery
Why is there a disconnect in intended and achieved financial plans/goals?
The Problem
People fail to accomplish their intended financial plans/goals as successfully as their achieved financial plans/goals.
Background Research
Primary users are young adults in the UK
A survey by HSBC found that 63% of young people in the UK are turning to apps and tools to help them save money and manage their finances, such as Monzo and Moneybox.
Use apps to
manage finances
63%
Fintech Amid 55% Future Concerns
A survey conducted by the Money Advice Service found that 41% of young adults in the UK (aged 18-24) have less than £100 in savings.
A survey by EY found that while 77% of millennials in the UK use Fintech apps, 55% said they were not confident about their financial future.
Less than
£100 in savings
Use Fintech apps
77%
Not
confident
55%
Competitive Analysis
The main functions in managing multiple financial institution accounts, budgeting and setting goals
Upon comprehending the problem, we researched the most prevalent Fintech Apps available in the market and assessed their respective functions, which helped us in extracting the key points of the problem from the model.
Monzo
Emma
Revolt
Starling
Questionnaire and Interview
55 participants answered the questionnaire, and 10 attended the one-on-one interview.
To determine the effectiveness of current Fintech apps in helping young people to save and manage their finances, we administered a questionnaire consisting of 30 questions to 55 participants who have used or intend to use such apps for this purpose.
To gain a deeper understanding of the questions, we further conducted one-to-one user interviews with additional 10 participants.
Q 1
Have you ever made a financial plan?
Yes
74%
Potential
20%
5.5%
No
Q 2
Did you achieve your financial plan?
“No️”
78%
🙆
Interview 1
Do you believe using fintech apps has helped you optimize their financial management?
Interview 2
What features or services do you typically use in fintech apps？
Interview 3
Have you encountered any problems or issues when using fintech applications for financial planning?
Interview 4
Is there anything specific you would like to see improved or added to existing fintech apps to help users optimize financial management？
Analysing the Data + Insights
Processing and Analysing the data 👀
55 participants who have used or intend to use Fintech apps to save and manage their finances
70+ data points
3 main insights
01 -
Frequently abandoning savings plans
People frequently abandon savings plans due to impulsive spending.
02 -
Complex budgeting process
People are frustrated by the tedious budget set-up steps due to the need for prior allocation of funds to each spending category.
03 -
Lack of continuous Incentives
Due to the lack of incentives, people find it difficult to stick to financial management Apps.
User Persona and User Journeys
Meet Ian
Based on our insights and observations from the research methods, we created two personas and user journeys that captured our users' essence and characteristics.
The initial character, Ian, is a supply chain manager attempting to leverage Fintech products for personal savings targets. However, a dearth of sustained perseverance and motivation leads to a recurrent pattern of abandoning these saving aspirations prematurely, primarily due to impulsive expenditures.
Meet Berry
Berry, the second character, grows weary of his haphazard spending tendencies and endeavors to utilize Fintech tools for structuring a budget. Regrettably, he consistently relinquishes this budgeting pursuit, primarily due to his uncertainty in allocating the budget effectively and his deficiency in sustaining motivation.
How might we improve the motivation to manage the financial plans for people?
Design
Testing Design Concepts
Setbacks😮💨 and New Direction for financial motivation
At first, we spent 1 week trying to play with 3 directions to improve financial motivation.
Educational Resources
AI to streamline
Gamification to motivate
Brainstorming theApp Design
Catering towards 3 main flow
Customized approaches were created to tackle unique challenges faced by different groups, as seen in Ian and Berry's cases.
We designed the goal acceleration feature to help impulsive spenders save more by boosting their motivation. For those struggling with budgeting, we used AI tools to reduce giving up.
To maintain user motivation and dedication to saving and budgeting goals, we set up a continuous reward system that consistently measures and enhances their motivation.
01 - Ian
Accelerated Savings Plan
Provide users with an interactive experience that enhances their motivation to save
02 - Berry
Quick Budgeting with AI functions
Generate personalized budget plannings for users that fits their specific needs
03 - Ian + Berry
Rewards Incentives
Provide users reward points that can be redeemed for products once they meet their saving goals and budget plans
User Flow
Wireframes
Solution
Final Solution + Design
01 - Ian
Savings accelerator to achieve goals faster
•
Provide goal acceleration to give users more incentive to accomplish their goals
•
Experience a vivid and visually appealing representation of savings through a money pot
02 - Berry
Personalised budget plans easily created in seconds!
•
Leverages AI to automatically generate the most appropriate budget for each category, based on users' daily expenses
•
Track spending for each budget category and provides corresponding notifications for each category
03 - Ian + Berry
Redeem rewards for achievement of Budgets and Goals
•
Earn points for each goal and budget achieved
•
Redeem Points for vouchers
•
Allowing users to be more confident and motivated to achieve each Goal and Budget
Evaluation
Testing and Improvement
3 Main Improvements to the Design
We conducted the usability test with the low-fidelity prototype with 5 participants and asked them to complete the same three tasks. We asked them to go through different scenarios in our prototype to garner enough feedback for our next design iterations.
Design System
Colour
Fonts
Header 20 pt, Semi bold
Large Text 16 pt, Semi bold
Large Text 16 pt, Regular
Medium Text 14 pt, Semi bold
Medium Text 14 pt, Regular
Small Text 12 pt, Semi bold
Small Text 12 pt, Regular
Icons
Future Steps
If I have more time……
•
Explore further the boundaries of financial management for young people.
•
See the different incentives available to motivate young people to manage their money and further research on how to develop young people's financial thinking and habits.
•
If we had more time, we would love to conduct an in-depth usability study with young people from a variety of occupational and educational backgrounds and track how well the prototype brings young people up on financial planning incentives over time.
•
Better adhere to WCAG standards.