UX Case Study: PolyPool
The product: PolyPool is a collaborative savings tracking app designed for friends and family.
Challenge: Design an app for friends and family to save up money together.
Deliverables: User Research (interviews), Personas, User Journey Map, Competitive Audit, Paper and Digital Wireframes, Prototype, Usability Study and UI (Mockups/Visual Design).
Role: UX researcher and designer.
Research
Summary
The research phase began with conducting 8 interviews across a diverse group of participants of various ages, genders, and abilities. Synthesizing this data allowed me to identify key pain points and uncover important insights. Based on this research, I developed 4 personas to represent the primary user groups and created a user journey map for one of them to visualize their experience. This foundational research was crucial in grounding the app's concept in real user needs and participant feedback.
Pain Points
Consequences of disorganization:
Interviewees perceive disorganization as the main factor that prevents them from achieving financially ambitious projects. It causes them to spend more money in the long run, and they feel it as a constant source of stress.
Complexity:
Interviewees find money management tools too confusing, hard to learn and difficult to use across different platforms.
Lack of collaboration and compromise:
Interviewees described the process of managing savings for large groups of people as ‘chaotic’, due to a lack of commitment and organizational collaboration.
Lack of transparency:
Interviewees mentioned distrusting any money management app that doesn't provide easy access to the transactions being made.
Distrust:
The interviews revealed that although users need a tool to manage their group savings, some users prefer to handle their money physically or would be wary of handing over control of it to a new product.
Product Needs
Based on the pain points, the product must:
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Facilitate organization and thus promote the user's financial health.
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Encourage collaboration and motivate the users to reach the common goal.
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Be intuitive and easy to use.
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Provide transparency and control over the savings.
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Adress the user’s needs without getting involved in the direct handling of the user’s money.
Personas
To help synthesize information about users that I collected during research, I created four different personas. Here are two of them:
User Journey Map
Mapping out Mary’s user journey revealed the benefits of creating an app for users who need to manage their savings collaboratively: it saves time, includes everyone, helps with organization, and keeps members motivated.
Competitive Audit
I compared two different features (the creation of a new collaborative savings goal and the payment method) from direct and indirect competitors to find gaps and opportunities.
Gaps and Opportunities
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Manual Registration: Address a key competitor gap by offering manual deposit registrations, not just in-app transfers.
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Savings Categories: Introduce a "categories" option within the savings goal, a feature competitors currently lack.
Starting the Design
Ideation
I used the 'How Might We' (HMW) method of ideation and rapid sketching techniques, such as Crazy Eights, to generate design ideas. The storyboards were also instrumental in visualizing the user flow within the app.
Paper Wireframes
Taking the time to draft iterations of each screen of the app on paper ensured that the elements that made it to the digital wireframes would be well-suited to address user pain points. I prioritized a clean, intuitive design.
Digital Wireframes
As the initial design phase continued, I made sure to base the screen designs on feedback and findings from the user research.
Low-fi Prototype
The user can progress through the sign-up screen, create a new savings goal, and register their first payment.
Usability Study
I conducted a remote usability study to evaluate the process participants used to create a savings goal and register a payment. I used open-ended questions to gather the participants' perception and identify pain points. At the end, they answered the Standard Usability Survey and the prototype had a final score of 8.6, exceeding the passing benchmark.
Findings:
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Users found the process of creating a new savings goal quick and easy to understand.
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Users want more customization options (color, icons, and the ability to add their own information).
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Most users didn’t have trouble with the 'Payment Registration' page but two had the same issues: difficulty finding the access button and confusion regarding the labels.
Refining the Design
Mockups
Based on the Usability Study findings, I refined the initial design by converting the low-fidelity wireframes into high-fidelity mockups.
1. Same settings process
2. Visual design within the brand guidelines
3. Relocation of the 'Submit Payment' button
Note
This project is currently active and is progressing toward a second round of Usability Study.