Bud-E : A social digital payments app

Leveraging social features to help young adults build healthy financial habits in the era of digitalisation of money.
TIMELINE
MY ROLE
TEAM
TOOLS
INDUSTRY
4 months
End-to-end design process:
user research, ideation, user flow, visual design, user testing
Solo project with helpful guidance from ADPList Mentors
Figma, Adobe Illustrator
Finance / Fin-Tech
PROBLEM SPACE
Observation no. 1:
Digital UPI payments cause overspending.
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH
ā€œ Those who used mobile payments had 34 percent higher odds of spending more than their yearly income than those who used other payment methods.ā€
Digital Payments Induce Over-Spending: Evidence from the 2016 Demonetization in India, published on March 2019.
USER RESEARCH
Conducted interviews with 5 students aged 20 - 22 who categorise themselves as over spenders.
Goal: Understand how spending digitally is different to spending with cash and how the design of UPI apps encourages spending.
1
2
3
4
Amount of money spent and left in the bank account is hidden.
Remembering UPI pins are second nature to us.
Gamification in UPIĀ apps encourages spending.
Lack of tangibility and hence less emotional connection.
Observation no. 2: Young adults aged 18 - 23 are more susceptible to overspending.
WHITE PAPER RESEARCH
"Nearly three out of every four young people spend more than they earn. New data from the Office of National Statistics shows that between April 2016 and March 2018, 71 per cent of people aged 18 to 24 spent more than their income."
USER RESEARCH

Goal: Understand difficulties the user group has with budgeting and how their social interactions affects spending/saving.
Conducted interviews with 5 students aged 20 -22 who consider themselves over spenders.
1. Social influences - comparison & compulsion
2. Difficulties budgeting and expense tracking - tedious & not regular
"In social situations there's a fear of missing out or feeling excluded if we donā€™t make this purchase etc."

ā€œOften because of social media - I feel the compulsion to purchase the same items as my friends. Like a popular piece of clothing.ā€
"I personally don't think apps are for me, I don't like having to fill things up it's tedious and nothing really works it just increases my work load."

"Paytm and apps cant keep a track of how much you are spending - it feels like thereā€™s no limit, at least with cash I can see that it gets over."
HERE'S WHERE WE TAKE A DEEPER DIVE
"Money is social."
"About half of millennials and 44% of Generation Z (those born approximately between 1995 to 2015) acknowledge their spending habits are partly shaped by social media."
"Research found that 44% of 16- to 24-year-olds said friends put pressure on them to keep splashing out even when they ran out of money."
THE CHALLENGE
How might we leverage social features to help young adults build healthy financial habits in the era of digitalisation of money?
How we got there:
01
02
03
04
UNDERSTAND
IDEATION
deSIGN
validate
Interviews, white paper research, user journey mapping
Exploring possible solutions, creating wireframes, iterating designs, preliminary user testing
Design system - colours, typography, hi-fidelity prototypes
Business objectives and KPIs, user testing
01 UNDERSTAND
User Personas
01 UNDERSTAND
Identifying Pain Points
Social Influences
Expense tracking
02 IDEATE AND ITERATE
03 DESIGN SYSTEM
Colour Palette & Typography
IĀ chose colours that reflect loyalty and trust in the users. I find this to be crucial as it a money management application.
SOLUTION
A simple to use UPI payments application with social and positive habit forming features.
As the act of spending happens on a UPIĀ application, it is fitting to design a solution where the problem originates. Therefore, I chose to design a UPI app where IĀ prioritised not only the ease of making transactions but also reflecting on them.
Low effort expense tracking
Category can be selected at the moment of purchase. And also after the purchase by creating & selecting categories to track daily expenses. Users will be notified on any pending transaction check-in in the due tab.
Explore challenges based on your money habits
Old habits die hard, Bud-EĀ identifies recurring purchases that users spend on and recommends challenges.

Users can reflect on spending behaviours and see how much they can save.
Habit forming design
Check-In to log daily transactions with a timer when the day starts. Weekly challenges to keep regular track in areas users spend most.
Make comparison your companion
See how your friends are doing in challenges and weekly spending.
04 VALIDATE
Business Objectives & User Testing
If this were a real product, I would use the following product goals and metrics to monitor user engagement and usability.
REFLECTION
User psychology is key
Habit forming design
Future steps...
Designers can leverage the power of psychology to bring positive change and create flows and environments that allow for these changes to manifest.
In this case study IĀ delved deep into hooks model and how digital products shape habits. It was an insight into how these "hooks" in design can be used as a positive or negative influence.
In this particular project there can be many user flows that can be explored further into. Besides making the existing flows more easy to use, I would delve deeper into positive comparison metrics and how they can be integrated.
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JAHNAVI KOLAKALURI Ā© 2023
Designed with care, coffee and countless all-nighters.
Built with Webflow.
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