Designing an Android Personal Finance App

This is the first time I was designing for a personal finance/ expense tracker app. And I was confused about how to approach the problem. The first question that I had in my mind was who will use such an app & why will they use it?

To get an answer to this question, I started my research to identify the potential and extreme users of the expense tracker app.

Because of limited time, a set of guiding questions were sent to 6 respondents with varied backgrounds & age groups (family & friends). I felt the need to structure the interview questions beforehand so that I can derive effective insights into users' motivations & feelings about budgeting and tracking their expenses. The questions were non-leading & short. Let’s have a look at the questions that were asked-

The interviews revealed

major user pain points

user behaviour

tools and methodologies used

while budgeting & tracking expenses.

⚠️ Most people stop at writing their expenses Responses from people & research showed that users believe budgeting means just writing their expenses daily/weekly/monthly or whenever they wish to. Very few people analyze or even look at the written expenses.

😢 Users are not sure if their data is secured Responses from people & research showed that most users find the idea of an expense tracker helpful but they pose a threat to privacy and data breach.

📝 Users tend to follow the old mental model Responses from people & research showed that users prefer to follow the traditional method of budgeting- pen and paper or even using an excel sheet. The reasons they did not prioritize an app over pen & paper are-

They are not aware of personal finance or expense tracker apps

Pen and paper are readily available, while users will have to first find & then download the app (most likely).

💡 Users are unable to comprehend the importance of budgeting Responses from people & research showed that most people don’t feel the need to budget or track their expenses. They usually follow their regular instincts when spending or practice budgeting in their mind. There is also a lack of a definite process among users to achieve a certain financial goal.

🤔 Unaware of potential solutions (expense tracker or personal finance apps) Responses from people & research showed that most people don’t feel the need to budget or track their expenses. They usually follow their regular instincts when spending or practice budgeting in their mind. There is also a lack of a definite process among users to achieve a certain financial goal.

Mission statement/Goal- Create an experience that drives people to switch from pen and paper to an easy-to-use & reliable app that helps them to

track their finances

save in a disciplined manner

understand their spending behaviour & take actions accordingly

It was critical to define a key target audience to focus on. Research revealed that people from the age group of 21-55 were potential users for a personal finance/ expense tracker app.

Creating personas will help me figure out our target audiences’ needs, experiences, behaviours and goals. These 2 personas made the design task at hand less complex, guided my ideation processes, and they helped me work out the goal of creating a solid user experience for our target user group.

Critical solutions were drafted after conducting competitor analysis of personal finance and expense tracker apps. Competitor analysis will help me recognise functionalities & features that I will attempt to add, to see if they already exist and, if so, how our competitors introduced them, and then what we can do to improve them.

Due to limited time, I included 3 direct + 2 indirect competitors for the application tracker-

Walnut

goDutch

INDmoney

Smallcase

Groww

Because of limited time, I brainstormed ideas and drafted out solutions for only the critical screens & user journeys. For login screens or onboarding screens, I directly started with the high fidelity designs.

One of the assumptions that I considered when designing for the application tracker was to create it for the "Indian market" and users.

Diving deep into the stats, they unveil - "In 2020, Android held a share of 95.23 per cent of the mobile operating system market in India. This was followed by Apple's iOS, a distant second, with a 3.2 per cent market share. Android went from just above 10 per cent in 2012 to more than 60 per cent within four years." - Market share of mobile operating systems worldwide 2012-2021

The primary goal would be to create a colour palette that creates the desired look and feel for the application tracker based on values of trust, reliable & security.

I understand that a personal finance app that tracks expenses would be text and number heavy. Therefore the best typeface to use is the one with “tabular figures” (a.k.a. fixed-width or monospaced numerals) rather than proportional. 

I chose Source Sans Pro because its intended use is for user interfaces & it renders very well at small sizes. The font comprises 6 weights, making it extremely versatile. It is an open-source sans serif typeface created for legibility in UI design.

Designing Expense Tracker was a challenging project and research played a critical role in building solutions for the app. These are some of the learnings that I want to share with you all-

1. Prioritization of features and goals🎯 The project was to be completed within a timeline. There were times when I focussed on features or solutions that weren’t a part of the fundamental offerings for the app.

2. User interviews & research🔥 For this project, out of all the research methodologies, I singled out “user interviews” & I believe this is one of the major decisions that guided my design & ideation sessions. Insights from interviews helped me to understand the user behaviour when interacting with finance/budget-related activities in depth.