Cobalt
Financial freedom is not always something that is taught in school or something that is able to be modeled by parents. Cobalt aims to break generational financial fears and show younger generations, immigrants, and even established adults what can be possible when they take the reigns of their finances. The app and corresponding responsive website are the portal to the lessons and quizzes. This product can be used as self-guided instruction, or can be leveraged by institutions by using skill badges and completion rates to assess knowledge.
01 Project Overview
The Product
An app and responsive website promoting
financial education.
Duration
May 2022 - June 2022
The Problem
Many people have a lack of confidence when it comes to finances, but financial mastery is within reach for many people, if only learning about financial principles were straightforward and accessible.
The Goal
The goal of this product is to make learning about financial principles easy and even fun. With a rewards system and simple, easy to understand interface, users will have the tools they need to succeed.
My Role
Lead UX Designer & Researcher
Responsibilities
User Research
Wireframing
Prototyping
02 User Research
Summary
I conducted research including competitive audits, interviews, personas, and user journey maps.
Assumptions made before research were that most target users were intimidated by finances. This proved to be mostly true through my research, but I also found that there was a large number of users that feel some level of comfort with their finances, but would like to have a more rounded out education.
Personas
Johnny is a student who needs to learn more about how to manage finances because he wants to have more financial freedom after he finishes school.
Penny is a recent American immigrant
who needs to understand the American financial system because she wants her money to work hard for her and her family.
Ideation
Ideation exercises for kicking off this project included How Might We's to get the creative juices and user empathy flowing.
03 Starting the Design
Digital Wireframes
Wireframes were created to rough out the flow of the app, and establish the organization of materials.
During my research, I found there were certain structures that worked really well for educational apps, especially those that included interactive elements like quizzes.
Low-Fidelity Prototype
User flow was implemented for the low fidelity prototype that follows class > lesson > quiz
Usability Study and Iteration
Findings:
1. Navigation
Some users found it difficult to navigate to other classes and around the app in general.
2. Learning
Users want more icons to understand which components of the class are quizzes/lessons more easily.
3. Completion
Users preferred a clear indication when something was completed.
04 Refining the Design
Mockups
The usability study provided insights that I incorporated into the mockups.
Screens reflected the P0 and P1 tasks that I outlined from the usability study and further iterated on the designs and look of the app.
Responsive Website
This project included an exercise in creating a website version of the app, including designing for multiple screen sizes.
05 Takeaways
Impact
Users shared that this was an educational resources that they felt would actually help them learn more about how to handle money.
“I think after a few classes with Cobalt, I'll be able to finally follow through with some of my financial goals.”
What I Learned
Even though the problem at hand was tricky, going through the design process and aligning with user needs helped me come up with designs that were both feasible and useful.