Helping individuals save for financial surprises

The Emergency Fund Tool is a next generation solution that is part of of the newest offerings on the Plan & Track dashboard. The mobile and web enabled solution helps people determine how much money they have, how much money they should save, and assistance in building their savings to be better prepared for financial surprises.

Project Details

As the lead UX designer, I led and managed the initiative from discovery to delivery. Working in an agile process with product, design, research, content and tech, I helped establish the initiative goals, balance business and user requirements, and engaging our research and content partners throughout the design process.

TEAM

Director of Product
[2] Product Managers
Lead UX Designer
UX Designer
Content Strategist
UX Researcher
Mobile Development Team
Web Development Team
Services Development
Various Stakeholders

TIME FRAME

Iterative Timeline

TOOLS USED

Figma
Atlassian Jira
Atlassian Confluence

SKILLS USED

Project Planning & Management
Human-Centered Design Methods
Primary Research
Secondary Research
UX Design
UI Design
Iterative Design
Wireframing
Rapid Prototyping
Feature Prioritization
Mobile Design (Android & iOS)
Web Design
ADA Documentation
Quality Assurance Testing
Mentoring

Results

Successfully implementing an agile and iterative approach with our product, content, research, and tech partners to pilot and roll out to a mass customer audience.

Created two viable concepts that both tested strongly with retail & wealth segments.

Usage metrics: TBD

Savings growth metrics: TBD

How it works

How much do I need? | Emergency Fund Calculator

The emergency fund calculator allows users to set a target based on their monthly spending and the number of months they feel that they would need to cover in the event of an emergency to determine how much they need. Additionally, it allows users to select specific accounts that they associate with emergency funds and set up recurring transfers to grow their savings.

How much do I have? | Available Cash Insight

Available cash provides and understanding of all the liquid assets (cash) that is available across direct deposit accounts, across internal and external checking and savings accounts, that could be accessed if needed.

How can I save more? | Autosave

The Autosave feature allows users to set up a recurring transfer to grow their savings.

Testimonials

Overall, users found the new concept. Here are a few quotes from the research conducted:

“I like this concept because it helps me prioritize my spending and help me save more. It gives me a roadmap to save. I like it very much.”

“This would most likely help me set aside more for my emergency fund since there are tools that help me set it up so easily.”

“Nothing I can think of to improve this at this time, everything is straightforward and very useful.”

The Process

Our team…I planned and facilitated Human-Centered Design (HCD) practices on our team.

Business Goals

  • Rollout Plan & Track dashboard to broader eligible customer base

  • Eliminate confusion between safety net (retail customer) and emergency fund (wealth customer) caused by the rollout

  • Provide automatic money movement to grow savings

Design Goals

  • Streamline existing features so that they are intuitive

  • Ensure feature set meets user needs across segments

  • Help users feel confident that they have enough funds in the event of a financial emergency

The Problem

The rollout of Plan & Track dashboard to a broader eligible customer base would introduce confusion between Emergency Fund (wealth) and Safety Net (retail). Retail clients have the capability to create a Safety Net goal and fund it. Whereas, Wealth clients have the capability to set an Emergency Fund target but not fund it. The two concepts are similar but different. The initiative’s focus was to eliminate the confusion and streamline the similar but different concepts so that it could address the needs of multiple market segments.

The examples below describe some of the design and research activities used in eliminating the confusion and streamlining the two concepts.

Discover & Define

First a deep dive and audit was conducted into the existing functionality. Formative research was conducted with our research partners to determine and understand how users evaluate and define their emergency fund. This research defined the jobs to be done (JTBD) users were seeking to do and/or understand.

The key identified JTBD:

  • How much money do could access right now in an emergency?

  • How much cash on hand should I have to feel comfortable?

  • How can I save more if they don’t have enough?

Develop

Using human-centered design methods, I led and facilitated cross-functional ideation sessions to brainstorm ideas on how we could streamline and enhance our offerings. In collaboration with our research partners, we conducted two rounds of evaluative research on two different viable concepts. Both concepts received overwhelming positive feedback. In the second round of qualitative and quantitative testing,

Deliver

Working closely with our product and tech partner, the approach and rollout of the feature was iterative and phased. Working with tech and resource constraints a phased approach was devised. The phased approached included the removal of the Safety Net goal and the development of the enhanced Emergency Fund design. Delivery included designs for native (iOS and Android) and web platforms and ADA documentation.

The Result

The Emergency Fund tool provides customers with tools that help them understand how much money they could access right now in an emergency, how much they should have in the event of a financial emergency, and a way save more money if they don’t have enough.