UX Case Study: Building Trust & Financial Literacy
Ashley Bragg
StepZero: A financial management tool designed specifically for doctors in training. Utilizing a familiar framework to physicians, StepZero walks users through the process of creating a SOAP note to evaluate their financial situation.
Role
Release
May 2, 2023
Background
Problem
Physicians in training (medical students, residents, and fellows) face unique financial challenges, including massive upfront education costs, career-specific insurance, cross-country relocation, and board certification fees, while not yet earning an Attending salary. The early stages of the medical profession require an entirely different approach to personal finance, with standard personal finance advice and resources for established doctors falling short.
Need
Physician in training who feels overwhelmed about paying for things in the early stages of their career needs help to navigate their unique personal financial challenges and available physician-specific resources.
Rationale
Inspiration
As someone interested in personal finance, I have researched best practices for financial wellness. My challenge has been that I am married to a doctor, and all the advice out there just doesn’t fit our situation. Many of my doctor friends complain that they need to be better about their personal finance but don’t know where to start, what applies to them, and that they are too tired from work to do the right amount of research to feel confident in their decisions.
Context
Physicians have unique financial situations. They have massive upfront training costs, required insurance, and board certification fees; all the while, they get paid less than minimum wage per hour during residency and then have an instant jump in income once they become Attendings.
From Med Students, Residents, Fellows, Attendings, and Administrative roles, every stage in the medical profession has challenges and requires an entirely different approach to personal finance. Unfortunately, the standard personal finance advice and resources do not apply to their unique circumstances.
Many financial tools, such as income-based loan repayment, physician mortgages, and first responder discounts, are also available to medical professionals that need to be utilized more and are not today due to a lack of awareness.
Why it matters
Physician burnout is a significant challenge for the industry as a whole. If physicians burn out, their patients and work are impacted. Personal finance stress contributes to this burnout.
According to the Wisconsin Medical Journal article The Effect of Understanding Issues of Personal Finance on the Well-being of Physicians in Training of Residents surveyed, 82% say personal finances contribute to their health. They also call out a minimal previous financial education and an interest in more formal instruction on related topics.
Physicians in training with the proper support to navigate personal finance will have an improved quality of life and reduce their risk of burnout.
Target Audience
Med Students, Osteopathic Medicine (D.O) & Medical Doctors (MD)
Residents, Post Graduate Year 1+ (PGY1+)
Fellows
Medical Professional Support Network, Spouses, Family and Financial Planners
Who stands to benefit and why?
Those benefiting from this solution include medical students, residents, and fellows. They could be medical doctors or doctors of osteopathic medicine who all require the same extensive training and costly education. In addition, secondary beneficiaries, the financial companies that could become partners, could gain exposure and be recommended to this physician user base.
Process Overview
Ideation
Research
Concept Evolution
Visual Design
Solution Approach
Personalized guidance
Supporting them in finding and evaluating available resources to physicians at their training stage based on their individual needs
Finance management tool
The solution must provide a management tool they can access whenever and wherever so personal finance can better fit into their demanding schedules.
Desired Outcome
The desired outcome of this project is to provide physicians in training with a tool to tackle the unique personal finance challenges that come with the early stages of their profession, which include a long and costly training period, demanding hours, and a sudden spike in income. The solution should provide personalized guidance and support them in finding and evaluating available resources to physicians at their training stage based on their individual needs. In addition, it must provide a management tool they can access whenever and wherever so personal finance can better fit into their demanding schedules.
Solution
StepZero
StepZero: A financial management tool designed specifically for doctors in training. Utilizing a familiar framework to physicians, StepZero walks users through the process of creating a SOAP note to evaluate their financial situation. This includes four different sections:
Subjective - users input their current financial state, preferences, and future goals
Objective - Actual data points are gathered by connecting to their bank accounts and loan accounts
Assessment - an analysis is done based on these inputs and gives them an overview of what they are doing well and areas to work on. Additionally, it provides personalized article recommendations from a trusted publication called White Coat Investor.
Plan - finally, a plan is created to help them reach their goals. This includes a budget generator and financial checklist with tasks to complete within the tool.
They can upgrade to two paid versions of the tool, each increasing the level of involvement of certified financial planners. This allows them to hand this off to an expert or have an expert review their plan. The free version still provides them access to the tool’s unique physician-focused approach to finance.
Brand
Doctors take medical board exams called "Step One," "Step Two," etc. StepZero is named after this experience and is intended for use early in their training. User interviews suggest that the tool is best used for personal finance by medical professionals as early as possible.
Process
Generative Research
Competitive analysis
After conducting initial research reviewing 30 direct, indirect, and secondary competitors, seven were identified for further analysis. I then looked deeper at these seven competitors evaluating their strengths, weaknesses, relevance, and business models. This work identified a gap in the current market that my solution could fill.
Market Gap
Robust solutions supporting personal finance, such as Mint, Robinhood, and Acorns, are highly effective approaches to managing and evaluating personal finance challenges; however, they do not apply to physicians' unique challenges.
The second group of competitors specializes in the challenges of physicians. These are Doctors Without Quarters, Forme Financial, and North Star Financial. The problem with these is a lack of technology, no free options, and they all require the physician to work directly with a CFP with no self-serve options.
My solution provides doctor-specific support with a free self-service approach.
User Interviews
Four users interviewed
Four different specialties
All MDs and DOs
22 questions asked
30 min virtual sessions
Assumptions before testing
There isn’t a free or affordable solution for this problem today
Financial companies will want access to physicians and would be willing to pay to get in front of this user base
Physicians in training want an app specific to their profession to navigate personal finance and don’t need a financial planner
Physicians would want this tool to be provided by their programs, making programs/hospitals key stakeholders
Interview Takeaways
Users prefer a hybrid of technology and advice from a real person
Users see finance as a chore, and their needs are not being met with the current solutions
Users don’t want the solution to be provided by their programs
Time, knowledge, and motivation were listed as barriers
Concept Revisions
Based on these conversations, the problem was confirmed as accurately described, but the solution could be adjusted. Building a hybrid model instead of the original technology-only solution would be best. Users reflected that they had more trust in a person to help, so offering that option would build confidence in the solution.
The assumption that users would like a solution provided by their institution or organization was proven false. Furthermore, including the programs and schools in the business model showed problems because these are often temporary for the user, and there are varying levels of trust in their programs.
Researcher Conclusions
Their support systems of spouses and parents were accurately assumed to be heavily involved in financial management. Therefore, building a support system user experience would be a good idea for future iterations and should be built into the business model.
The tone of the technology could be more playful than initially assumed, as gamification and the Robinhood brand's playful nature were seen as positives. Including a more playful, lighthearted tone might support the motivation and help make the “chore” of personal finance less “boring” for users.
Ideation
Steps
Brainstorming
Ideation workshop
Prioritization Matrix
Moving from the generative research stage to the ideation phase, I first did a quick brainstorming exercise in Notion to list all possible paths. From there, I moved into FigJam to map out my ideas and prioritize the most critical and value-adding features. Finally, I organized the ideas into “must haves” and “wants” to minimize scope creep. See the results of this exercise below:
Building trust
While exploring ideas and concepts for this project, I knew I needed to build certain best practices into the product to better enhance the user's trust. This is particularly important with a financial product, and trust is crucial to this solution’s success.
Key trust-building elements that were identified and implemented:
Sign in with Doximity - Doximity is a known and trusted social networking and professional tool for physicians; it would lend credibility to StepZero by association.
The SOAP note model - SOAP notes have been a known framework for physicians from the beginning of their training. I intend to use this familiar and trusted tool in evaluating and planning patient care to demystify and make personal finance more approachable for doctors. The thought process here is that using something familiar will make the unfamiliar or the financial world less daunting.
Speaking doctor - I intentionally used the UX writing and content strategy to build trust in the platform further. For example, every explainer text was checked by a physician to make sure the medical terminology was appropriately used, such as “create a SOAP note” as opposed to “go through a SOAP evaluation.” This subtle yet impactful shift lets the user know I understand the doctor’s perspective and what they are going through.
Utilizing current resources - Instead of reinventing the wheel regarding helping articles, I included content from the White Coat Investor. Every user I interviewed mentioned this resource as their go-to for money information. A doctor created it, so other doctors trust the information. The problem with the site is that there is too much info, and they don’t know where to start. That's why I made StepZero suggest personalized articles from this trusted resource. Now they don’t have to dig or guess.
Purposeful friction - I added a loading screen that will delay the assessment results between the Objective and Assessment steps. This was purposeful, as studies show that people believe certain things should take some time to be accurate. By delaying the results, even if they are ready sooner, users will feel the evaluation has looked at every angle and trust the results more.
Visual Design
The assets below outline the evolution of the concept from user flows to the low fidelity wireframe to the high fidelity prototype developed for testing. With each step the concept and visual story was expanded and edited to create a more seamless experience. This step in the design process helped turn an idea and data into something users could react to and I could iterate on.
User flows, wireframes, and prototypes completed:
Sign up
SOAP Overview
Subjective
Objective
Assessment
Personalized Dashboard
SOAP Note Overview User Flow
Low Fidelity Wireframe
Hi-Fi Prototype
Concept Evolution
Using the Hi-Fi prototype, I created an unmonitored usability study utilizing the Maze tool. I had seven respondents that walked through five user flows and responded to five open-ended questions. This study helped identify points for the user and improve the tool. The heat maps and task flows are particularly helpful in understanding the user experience.
Problems identified in the study
Flow completion
It was unclear to users when a section was completed
SOAP concept
Users didn’t understand how a SOAP note was related to finance
Additional Info
Users wanted more information about different sections as they were completing tasks
Solutions Identified
Flow completion
It was unclear to users when a section was completed
SOAP concept
Users didn’t understand how a SOAP note was related to finance
Additional Info
Users wanted more information about different sections as they were completing tasks
I refined my prototype from this work to better walk the user through the process with confirmations and visual cues. Additionally, minor edits were made for accessibility and flexibility of use. Below is the final prototype and link.
View the Final Prototype
Outcome
Challenges
One unique challenge was the need for more willingness to participate in a financial-related study from doctors. I have an unusually high number of doctors in my friend group and network who are typically very willing to help with research; however, this study being connected to finance made them uncomfortable participating. I believe this was due to their anxieties surrounding the topic. This was a challenge in getting participants in the study, but it also highlighted the accuracy of the assumptions and the importance of the work.
Reflection
Another challenge I didn't anticipate was the difficulty of building a financial solution without any expertise in finance. Looking back on it now, I would have included interviews with financial professionals to help me validate this approach from a financial perspective. The SOAP note may be the correct route for a doctor to approach finance, but I need the financial perspective to be confident it is the right one for financial planning.
On a personal note, I am very glad I chose this topic to explore. Through this process, I learned about great resources I can use for my personal finance, and I even found a financial planner through my competitive analysis. StepZero may not become a reality, but this process helped me grow as a designer and find solutions available to me today.
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Posted Feb 20, 2024
StepZero: A financial management tool designed specifically for doctors in training. Utilizing a familiar framework to physicians.
