Comet Coin
Why do college students lack financial literacy?
This case study aims to assess the financial literacy of UTD college students and use the findings to design a mobile app that enhances their financial decision-making skills.
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Design Research Methods
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Research
User Personas
Usability Testing
Prototyping
UI/UX Design
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January - May 2021
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Figma
Problem
College students are barely financially literate
Through a survey sent out to UTD students, we learned that:
A majority knew mostly about credit cards, but wouldn’t consider themselves financially literate outside of that.
Money adds pressure and stress to the emotional welfare of UTD Students.
Most students stick to monthly budgets.
Research
Our team conducted a focus group utilizing 10 participants to rate their overall financial literacy as college students
The majority of these students rated themselves between 5 to 6 on a scale of 10
We discovered students at UTD are just barely above average when it comes to financial literacy
User Persona
After interviewing various UTD students, I developed a persona based off of their goals and pain points
A lot of the students I interviewed spent majority of their budget eating out
They were also full time students who believed they didn't have time to budget
User Journey
We mapped out how users might interact with our app
By mapping out these user journeys, we were able to identify pain points, opportunities for improvement, and moments where the app could deliver exceptional value
From there, the team collaborated on a features list that would address the pain points we found through research
Features
Our team compiled a roster of potential features for our app and presented them to a diverse group of UTD students for evaluation
We discovered the most beneficial functions based on their preferences and integrated the top three selected features into our app
These features included income index, credit card comparison, and spendings tracker of individual utilities
Low Fidelity Wireframes
We formulated a list of 5 actions to evaluate the user's ability in accomplish basic functions within this design framework
This low-fidelity prototype had seven distinct pages and utilized cutouts, which we strategically substituted when the tester engaged with specific buttons, emulating interactive responses
Testing
“The bottom task bar is kinda confusing. I can't understand what the symbols on the bottom mean based on intuition."
We engaged a student from UTD to test the prototype and gained feedback from her.
The participant found the overall user experience to be intuitive and easy to comprehend.
However, she did encounter some confusion with the toolbar at the bottom of the interface
As a solution, we included descriptive subtitles accompanying the symbols to enhance clarity
High Fidelity Wireframes
Creating a better wireframe
Homepage and Credit Card Infographics
Final Prototype
Our team used Figma to design our final screens