Case Study
SUMMARY
Created a budgeting solution to help young people not only stay within their budget but also build lasting financial habits. In order to find the optimal balance between simplicity and value, my team researched the market, conducted surveys and interviews, and ran usability tests to gather insights and understand user needs.
CHALLENGE
Despite technological advancements, many Americans still rely on manual methods such as spreadsheets for budgeting due to dissatisfaction with existing digital applications, which lack control, flexibility, and simplicity. These applications fail to meet the needs of young adults managing their finances, highlighting a market gap for an intuitive solution that combines the control and transparency of spreadsheets with the automation and convenience of modern mobile tools.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The target audience consists of people aged 18-30 interested in making and sticking to a budget
Research Questions
Current Habits and Attitudes | users' existing practices and attitudes
What factors influence young adults' budgeting goals, and how do they currently manage their finances?
Challenges | Pain points in current applications and practices
What barriers hinder consistent budgeting habits among young adults?
User preferences | features and workflows for effective budgeting
Which budgeting tools, information sources, and methods do young adults find most effective?
Competitor Analysis
We analyzed four prominent budgeting tools to build a foundational understanding of the current landscape, helping us define opportunities for innovation. Below is a summary of strengths, weaknesses, and gaps in current market offerings
Surveys
Next, we surveyed young adults aged 18–30, leveraging platforms such as Reddit, Slack, and personal networks to ensure a diverse participant pool. The survey gathered 54 responses and focused on understanding budgeting behaviors, tool usage, and challenges. Questions were crafted to address gaps identified during the competitive analysis and to explore unknowns related to our research questions. Below are three key pain points revealed from surveys.
Semi-Structured Interviews
To complement the survey data, we conducted 16 semi-structured interviews. Participants were divided into two groups to provide a well-rounded perspective:
Young Adults: Students and early-career professionals were interviewed to capture personal budgeting habits, challenges, and preferences.
Subject Matter Experts (SMEs): Financial professionals provided insights into industry trends and best practices for budgeting.
Each interview followed a flexible script tailored to the participant's background, ensuring that we gathered detailed, context-specific insights. Recruitment was done through LinkedIn, professional networks, and personal connections, resulting in a diverse range of perspectives. We analyzed interviews using thematic analysis on a spreadsheet, grouping tags by common themes that emerged such as goals and motivations for budgeting, and mentions of useful features.
Prototyping and Usability Testing
Building on the insights from the previous phases, we created prototypes to test and refine our design concepts. Prototyping was conducted in two stages:
Lo/Mid-Fi Testing: Simple grayscale wireframes were tested with four participants to evaluate the structure, navigation, and usability of initial workflows. Feedback informed revisions and improvements in the design's layout and functionality.
Hi-Fi Testing: High-fidelity prototypes were tested with seven participants to assess interactivity and user engagement. The focus was on validating the core workflows, such as categorization, budget adjustments, and trend analysis. Scenarios were designed to simulate real-world usage, enabling us to observe user behaviors and interactions in detail.
Research Findings
Budgeting is often motivated by fear of overspending
Interviews revealed that people began budgeting after noticing a pattern of overspending and continuing due to a fear of repeating the mistake.
This was also supported by survey where 61% expressed a fear of overspending and hence budgeted their expenses. Additionally, 43% budgeted with the intention of reaching a specific financial goal, and 32% wanted to learn more about their spending habits.
“I started budgeting after moving here for the graduate program. I didn't expect the rent to be this expensive and I ended up burning through all my expenses within the first 2 weeks”
Budgeting is time consuming and tedious
Users found budgeting too time-consuming, with users in our interviews mentioning that manual tracking and categorization were particularly cumbersome. Through our sentiment analysis, we also found many of the comments that received high negative sentiment scores were about the tediousness of current solutions. Manually adding expenditures takes time that the participant is unwilling to put in and increases cognitive load.
We found that incorporating relevant automation for tracking spending is crucial in minimizing the time users spend manually adding expenses.
“I used to manually add things in an app and that was too much work!”
Current methods lack adaptability to financial situation changes
A common theme observed in interviews was that current applications and methods failed to adapt to the shifts in users’ financial situations.
Participants in interviews who identified as freelancers and part-time workers described struggles with finding tools that suited their specific financial behaviors and situation, particularly when their income was inconsistent.
Visualizing and auto-categorizing spending were key feature preferences
In our survey, 50% of respondents identified visualizations of spending patterns as a major motivator for consistent budgeting, while 39% emphasized automated savings, tracking progress toward financial goals, and better expense tracking tools. Additionally, 85% rated expense tracking by category as highly useful, making it the most critical budgeting app feature.
Interviewees echoed the demand for spending habits visualizations, highlighting the importance of simple, trend-focused data.
They also sought more automation in budgeting apps, favoring customizable categories for greater control. However, concerns arose in interviews about the accuracy of spending categories based on experiences with apps like Rocket Money and YouNeedaBudget. While automatic categorization provides valuable insights, participants preferred having options to create, adjust, and approve categories while ensuring privacy and trust in the app.
“Rocket Money started categorizing well but there a lot of uncategorized ones too and I would receive notifications all the time about it”
Design Requirements
Prioritizing simplicity and automation
The first design requirement we identified was to create a simple and automated process that minimizes the time and effort required from users. This requirement is based on our findings that budgeting is too tedious and time consuming, that users appreciated the auto-population of visuals, and that users are open to automation in their budgeting solution.
Concise data that helps users make better financial decisions
The second design requirement we identified was to provide financial tools that offer just the right amount of information, focusing on actionable insights that help users make informed decisions. From our research we found that users appreciate data visuals and are also receptive to guidance on their finances.
Flexibility and customization to fit unique financial situations
The final design requirement we identified was to offer flexibility and customization, enabling users to manage their budgets in a way that suits their unique financial situations. This stems from our findings pertaining to the lack of adaptability in current solutions. Users also wanted the ability to dynamically reallocate budgets—adjusting one category to cover overspending in another—as well as the option to carry over or spread expenses across months to better manage large or unexpected costs.
Lower Fidelity Design Iterations
For our lo fi wireframes, we centered our application around 4 main pages: home, spending, trends, and plan. We then completed rounds of usability testing and AB testing, focusing on essential features such as re-categorizing an expense, understanding the category view, etc. Key findings from this stage included:
Balancing Budget Overspend
All participants preferred dealing with overspending by decreasing the budget manually in one category to balance the overspend in another category. Additionally, participants mentioned that if the overspend was minimal, they would prefer not to edit their budget.
Customizable Budget Visualizations
The graphics were well received by our participants in the home, trends, and plan pages , but they still emphasized the need to customize based on their preferred metrics and financial situation. When given the choice between complex versus simple graphics, participants geared towards the simple ones, even if they showed less information.
Preference for Simple Graphics
We presented several kinds of data visualizations on each page and asked users for feedback. The overall consensus was that the information was too overwhelming and should be much simpler.
This page was easy to understand for users and their response to it was neutral
“I like the warning but wouldn’t want to modify if it’s just a small overspend”
Users liked the idea of customizing data view
Final Design and Key Features
Overview
Based on the priorities identified from our survey and interview findings, we identified four core flows our mobile application should focus on: Onboarding to create a budget, monitoring and editing budgets, recategorizing expenses, and getting a holistic view of spending habits. To support these flows, our mobile application features three main navigational screens: budget, trends, and spending. To access each screen, our wireframes provide a bottom tab navigation with icons and text that describe the page. Below is an overview of each flow’s starting point. The key user journeys and design decisions are detailed in the following sections
Onboarding
Budget
Trends
Spending
Feature 1: Onboarding and Creating a Budget
WiseWallet onboarding allows new users to link their financial accounts and asks questions pertaining to the user’s budget and categorization of expenses. Then, it provides personalized budgets for categories based on their spending history, with clear explanations of how these numbers were calculated. There is also an edit button, allowing users to modify default budget categories created, reinforcing that the system is adaptable and providing our users control over their budgeting and expense tracking.
Feature 2: Create, edit, and track budgets
After a user successfully onboards, they are brought to the Budget page which serves as a primary dashboard. Here, users get a glance at their monthly spending, their financial details across accounts, and a breakdown / categorization of their expenses, which were all user needs identified in our previous research findings.
We allow users to modify their budget and simultaneously decrease the budget from another category. To facilitate this, we incorporated both a slider and manual input space, as we received usability feedback that supported both methods. To reduce the visual burden, we also shortened the “modify budget” notification and added an “ignore” button so users can remove it from view.
Feature 3: Learn about spending habits in the trends page
The Trends page offers users a holistic view of their spending over time, provides the user’s main financial metrics, and presents insights regarding their spending. To convey this information, simple visuals are used for main diagrams such as cash in vs cash out and the user’s week comparisons. Key metrics are also given, which users have the ability to edit and choose to fit their preferences.
Feature 4: View and categorize expenses from the spending page
From the Spending Page, users can get a transparent view of their previous expenses and how they are categorized. The value this page offers includes the flexibility to re-categorize expenses, which our previous research found to be lacking in similar applications.
Realization Plan & Next Steps
Design Steps
This is currently an MVP with core features needed for app functionality. Next steps would involve continuing to consider edge cases, adding gamification, and educational materials. For example, the budget page features a default state and an overspend state, but it can also feature motivational states celebrating good budget adherence to make the user experience more engaging.
Technical Steps
Choose a platform to begin building on (IOS or Android) as well as define database and authentication handling. Develop and integrate the core features of the app, ensuring smooth performance, security, and scalability.
Legal Steps
Draft clear privacy policies and terms of service to ensure user data protection and legal compliance. Ensure any necessary legal approvals or licenses are obtained for operating the app, particularly around financial data handling.
Further Research
Continue building out key features, such as the insights functionality, to provide more value and deeper analysis for users. This may include creating algorithms or expanding customization options to better meet user needs. After the app is released, continue gathering user feedback to identify areas for improvement and further iterations.
Key Takeaways
Through this project, I gained experience working with a UX team to design a budgeting solution that strikes the right balance between simplicity and value. Collaborating closely with my team, I helped synthesize insights from market research, user surveys, and interviews to create a product that not only helps young people stay within their budgets but also fosters long-term financial habits. We iterated on multiple design concepts, constantly refining our approach based on usability tests and user feedback. This process taught me how to integrate user needs into every stage of development and reinforced the importance of creating intuitive, engaging solutions that address real-world challenges. The project also deepened my understanding of the role user-centered design plays in building effective tools that can have a lasting impact on users' daily lives.