Bank of America
Redefining ways for college students to gain financial literacy
Fast forward to 2024 returning to college myself for the last 2 years– I've gained a deeper understanding students face when it comes to financial literacy. These conversations and my own experiences motivated me to revisit the project.
Although the initial design had a solid foundation, I realized it could be refined. With previous research insights and new usability tests, I was able to enhanced the overall design and addressed usability problems within 3 task flows.
Problem
One-third 34% of Gen Z rate their financial knowledge as low, among whom 40% say they don't even know where to start learning about finances.
Bank of America wants to help students gain financial literacy by teaching how to budget, instill healthy spending habits, saving money, track student loans and plant a seed for a financial future.
"How might we create an engaging platform that empowers students to learn about finance while maintaining meaningful connections with their parents?"
Solution
I designed a learning feature to incentivize students to learn financial literacy by offering points to complete lessons or quizzes. The points can be used to ask Bank of America or other participating banks to lower interest rates on loans, increase the chances of getting a loan or credit cards, and improve student's financial reputations.
Thinking Process
Bank of America launched the Better Money Habits initiative to provide accessible financial education. We began by conducting a competitive analysis of the program's offerings compared to other notable platforms, Chase and Simplifi.
Additionally, we performed a comparative analysis of learning-focused apps such as Duolingo and LinkedIn Learning to explore effective educational strategies and features, given that this project aims to enhance financial literacy for college students.
Understanding the students
Due to the time constraint on this project, we used an existing surveyed data from Bank of America’s Better Money Habits. They surveyed 1,024 general population adults (age 18 or older), and a partially overlapping sample of 635 Gen Z adults (age 18-24).
We also conducted user interviews to gain more qualitative data and utilize a rainbow sheet to uncover patterns where students may find challenging or any missed opportunities.
- Parents have a significant impact on students financial decisions.
- Many students don't know where to start and desire more guidance.
- Students tend to use Tik Tok or Youtube to learn about various topics because it's more engaging.
- Students primarily use their phones when browsing about financial topics.
Constraint
At this stage, we need to keep in mind the security and time constraints after discussions with our project manager. Given the time constraints, we realized that developing a standalone platform wasn’t feasible. We believe that building a separate app, when students already have the Bank of America banking app, might lead to low adoption rates or app abandonment.
Additionally, there were concerns about potential security breaches that could arise from having multiple platforms, particularly since the app would contain students' banking information. To mitigate these risks, we decided to integrate our solution directly into the existing Bank of America app and using the educational resources from Better Money Habits.
Design
We've mapped out two key task flows that prioritized the onboarding, goal setting, integrating family involvement, and lesson completion with rewards. This helps us visualize how users can achieve their goals in each task flow and ensures that our wireframes include essential elements to facilitate a smooth user journey. This method was important in effectively planning the design solution and aligns the idea with everyone on the team.
First iteration and user test (2022)
Our first iteration laid the foundation for the idea, but it also highlighted several critical areas for improvement. Through usability testing, we gained insights into the primary pain points students experienced while completing tasks.
We asked users to complete two primary tasks and set two key performance indicators–task success rate and system usability scale. We want to validate the core design and functionality using those two measurements because they are valuable for proof of concept (POC).
- There was a lack of visual hierarchy that caused students to overlook items during the "Complete a recommended lesson and quiz to earn points." task flow.
- Students were confused with the family engagement feature.
- Crowded UI was overwhelming and made it difficult for students to digest information.
- Small touch targets and insufficient spacing caused students to misclick thoroughout the process.
- Lacked cohesiveness with UI features that required refinement and clarity that hindered the overall user experience.
Second iteration (2024)
In this iteration, we utilized Untitled UI design system and created custom components to ensure a cohesive design and maximize design efficiency. We focused on refining the concept and ensuring any elements we included serve a purpose.
In this second testing phase, we asked users to complete two tasks and set two key performance indicators–task success rate and system usability scale. We want to validate the core design and functionality using those two measurements because they are valuable for proof of concept (POC).
Final Design
Gamified Better Money Habit learning resources to break down complex subjects to make learning finance fun and increase engagement.
We designed a fun and engaging mobile feature that aims to motivate students to learn finance by incentivizing students with points when they complete lessons and quizzes. The points can be used to ask Bank of America or other participating banks to lower interest rates on loans, increase the chances of getting a loan or credit cards, and improve student's financial reputations.
The collection of finance education content came from Bank of America's Better Money Habits website so rather than essentially reinvent the wheel, we renamed the tool from "BoA Learning" to "Better Money Habits" for mobile.
Additionally, we aim to bridge the gap between students and families based on insights found in user research. Students can interact with their families by challenging each other to learn; this will foster a supportive learning environment.
Refined concept with improved visual hierarchy
Our primary goal was to include only elements that serve the purpose and improve the visual hierarchy. Many of our issues during our first user testing stem from the crowded UI and lack of hierarchy.
Simplified family engagement
I implemented a clear path for users to add family members with a clear and concise explanation of the feature to decrease confusion around family engagement.
Streamline path toward earning points
We improved Better Money Habits with personalized learning and ensured students a clear path to earning points. We broke down an article about "Budgeting tips" to make it more digestible short lessen and include a tip at the end for students to earn 5 points when they score 80% or higher.
Impact
Task success rate
System Usability Scale
Reflection
Refining a project I worked on two years ago allowed me to apply knowledge I’ve honed since and reminded me of the importance of growth as a designer. Growth is essential in UX/UI design as the field constantly evolves with new trends, advancing technologies, and ever-changing user behaviors. As the lead UI designer on this project, I had the privilege of collaborating with incredible designers who brought unique perspectives and innovative thinking to every aspect of the design.
Our primary objective was to break down complex and often overwhelming financial information into bite-sized, engaging content tailored to college students' needs. Using a design strategy centered around gamification, we incorporated features such as progress tracking, knowledge points, and interactive lessons. This approach transformed financial literacy into a rewarding and motivating experience, making learning more digestible and enjoyable while fostering meaningful relationships between parents and students.
