overview

Between inflation, global financial crises, and endless subscription services, it’s never been harder to save money. Most people feel like the money they work hard to earn, slips away far too easily.

While Chase Bank provides a simple breakdown of your finances they don’t offer solutions to an individual’s spending habits. Consumers are usually left feeling directionless and incapable of strategizing. Our added feature will employ A.I. analytics to break down where a user’s money is flowing and offer real-time suggestions on saving targets, budgets, and subscription-canceling services.

problem

Users frequently set saving targets and budgets; however, they struggle to stick to the plan. With the help of AI, Chase can educate  clients on how they should save with reminders, spending restrictions, and financial analytics.

project goal

Users frequently set saving targets and budgets; however, they struggle to stick to the plan. With the help of AI, Chase can educate  clients on how they should save with reminders, spending restrictions, and financial analytics.

01 - the market

research approach

Money is a sensitive topic that can be hard for people to talk about, so I wanted to prepare by analyzing the market, before talking to users. I wanted to understand what leading-edge services were currently doing, how AI has impacted the industry, and Chase's tools cover.

Information collected from initial research & competitive analysis would inform my user interviews. Aiming to discovering how people approach their finances and if there are any similar threads.

competitive analysis

The market is currently flooded with products that offer services like spending analysis, budgeting, subscription cancelation, and goal targeting; however, none of these apps have packaged in AI services for consumers.

I surveyed products by Intuit, Rocket Money and Monarch. They all shared similar tools and even brand identities. Budget trackers allow users to set their own targets, but ultimately it is left to an inexperienced consumer to set these goals. Spending analytics are informative; however, the apps often times have a difficult time sorting miscellaneous transactions, leaving a lot of work to be executed by the end user.

These miscellaneous fees are difficult to sort, and can have an outsized impact on budget balances (especially in large markets like NY, LA, MIAMI, where daily spending includes more independent retailers/small businesses). Financial services' inability to sort these transactions, renders most tools useless, requiring a large upfront investment from users. To manually correct 3 months of expenses is no small feat, ultimately deterring most people from actually getting it done. Large ticket items (e.g. rent) are also often not included, and it can be hard to track split expenses.

user interviews

To give this topic the time it deserves, I ran 80 min in-depth interviews with 5 people between 30-45 that self-selected as being of different financial standings.

Interviews were conducted both in-person and virtually. Participants were candid about their comfort-levels regarding making, spending & saving money. We also discussed the definition of good financial health, advice & "rules", and different approaches to achieving goals.

key insights

In the interviews it became clear that few people engaged with their financial health. The few that did had learned from their parents.

Most struggled with the idea of saving, and were unsure how to set motivating goals that were within range.

02 - define

research synthesis

All respondents had tried 3+ similar products, with varying success. Rocket Money was most frequently referenced, alongside Monarch and internal banking services. The participants that felt good about their financial literacy, reported higher rates of  success because the goals they set were smaller on average. They had learned to set smaller goals from their parents.

Spencer, 30, never received instruction on saving from his parents, but set lofty goals for himself from a young age that he struggled meeting. When he failed to notice progress, he gave up on the idea. He had used the Chase app and reported that the UX felt unintuitive, outdated and “unhelpful”.

pain points

~ People don’t know where to start when it comes to building a budget

~ People set goals that are too big and feel of reach, causing them to loose motivation.


~ People can access spending breakdowns but don’t know how to put the information to use.

problem statements

~ How might we make saving, budgeting, and goal planning more actionable?

~ How might we make financial information more intuitive?

~ How might we incentivize setting small and achievable goals?

personas

Meet Joseph Yagari, a first generation American aspiring to have successful career and better his financial standing. Money was never easy to come by for his family, but he is looking to change that for himself.

Joseph is just beginning his journey towards financial independence and is interested in using AI to get there.


Chase should invest in their relationship with Joseph now, so that he stays with the bank as he builds wealth.

03 - ideate

user flow

Prior to designing the product, I developed an information architecture and designed the product framework.

05 - testing