Credit App for Young Adults
Project Type
User-Centred Design, User-Experince (UX), Human Factors
Year
2024
I had designed a credit app to help young adults check their credit score and get useful advice while doing so. This was a part of the Google UX project. User interviews were conduct and low fidelity and high fidelity designs were created on Figma.
Introduction
Research
Before beginning the design phase, I conducted exploratory user research with four participants within the target age range of 18–25—three men and one woman. The goal was to better understand young adults' financial behaviours, challenges, and perceptions around credit. Each participant was asked to list their current financial tools, describe their understanding of credit, and share their emotional response to the idea of managing credit independently. Several key themes emerged: a general lack of confidence and understanding around how credit works, a desire for simplified jargon-free explanations, and an interest in tools that could help build credit. Participants also expressed anxiety about the long-term consequences of credit mistakes and showed a preference for features that would give them feedback or progress tracking.
Paper Wireframe
After the user research was completed, I created four different paper wireframes. I focused on quickly ideating designs to come up with multiple different ideas. With the four different paper wireframes,I then put stars and notes to mark my favourite parts of each design for me to consider when creating a digital wire frame.
Low Fidelity Prototype
After finishing the paper prototypes I modelled my digital low fidelity prototype using Figma. I used the paper wire-frame that I thought was the best design that fit the needs while also implementing different aspects from the other paper wire-frames. This prototype mostly focused on the structure and the flow of information.
I decided to include a button that displayed an overlay to reveal the credit score in order to protect user privacy as that was a theme brought up during user interviews.
I also included a section that would inform users about how their credit scores were calculated, their credit history, and the factors affecting their credit history in order to best inform users about their credit score and how to improve it. A learn section that would provide free online resources was added at the bottom of the homepage for curious users who wanted to learn more or had further questions.
There was also a budgeting app where users could calculate their monthly costs and income and find their net income every month to allow for better spending habits.
High-Fidelity Prototype
The high-fidelity prototype was created then after. I translated key components from the low-fidelity wireframe into a polished, interactive design using consistent branding, typography, and colour schemes. Also, I have developed realistic layouts that closely resemble the final product to demonstrate flow and intended interactions. The high-fidelity prototype was also adjusted for multiple different phone screens.
This was available to then go through user testing. Following user testing I had included a contact button on the home screen and a way to easily and quickly find ways of obtaining approval.
Responsive Website
Alongside the app a responsive website was also created to help those accessing the app via a browser on a personal computer/laptop. The progressive enhancement model was used where I first designed the smallest most basic version of my site (the mobile app) and then scaled it up to make a desktop website. I had wanted to keep the website simple and consistent with what users might see on other websites especially considering the project is dealing with users who may be unfamiliar with finance topics like credit.
I wanted consistency so users felt a similar experience between devices and also to design for the context in which the users use each device.
Overall this Google UX prompt helped me continue to improve my design skills and provided a valuable learning experience with the tools available on Figma. During a reflection on the project, one thing I would do to improve is to improve my understanding of the layout tools on Figma and have better contrasting colours in order to improve accessibility and usability.