Mint App

The instant-gratification generation. The brokest generation. These are nicknames that have described Millennials. Although educated and making more money, it’s apparent that there is a disconnect between Millennials and their personal finance literacy.

Project Overview

Mint Lessons is a conceptual project that integrates a new feature seamlessly onto the existing Mint app.

The Challenge

Although educated and making more money, there is an apparent disconnect between Millennials, late 20s to early 30s, and their personal finance literacy. This certain disconnect is even more apparent when talking to same-age friends. Some know more financial knowledge than others. When attending personal finance webinars, this disconnect and lack of knowledge can clearly be seen.

THE SOLUTION

This project set out to add an educational feature into the Mint app. By integrating a bite-size lesson and short quiz feature, Millennials can learn and increase their knowledge so they can confidently apply their learning to make better financial decisions.

Starting the Research

Two faces of financial literacy

My first-hand experience was the catalyst to this project. Talking amongst my peers there was a clear indication that there were two types of financial experience: one who knows their stuff and one who doesn't. To see if this problem is much bigger, I turned to research.

Trends within the personal finance space

There were many trends rising in the fintech space from AI powered insights to gamifying learning.

Fintech companies have innovated and launched tools that help Millennials with their finances. However, it’s an interesting finding that fintech tools paired with low financial literacy might still have a negative effect on their financial behavior.

Understanding what I learned from first-hand experiences

After going through my interview transcripts, I synthesized my findings via empathy map. I found those aha moments that led me to my user needs. Each of these needs took me one step closer to empathizing with my users in order to ideate solutions that would help them get to their financial goals.

Moving from secondary to primary research, I wanted to include learning from Millennial’s direct experiences because I can uncover many insights from the stories they tell.
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I recruited Millennials who were Mint users and conducted user interviews remotely. My interview guide helped me go through these interviews with a clear direction as I listened to my participants’ stories and experiences.

Defining the Problem

Solidifying the problem space

Before ideating solutions, I used my empathy map insights and needs in order to craft POV statements. Using these statements allowed me to frame the problem with the user in mind. The how-might-we questions that came from this gave me the opportunity to come up with as many user-centered solutions as possible.

Collaborating at its best

Taking those HMW questions, I brainstormed individually to come up with as many solutions that I can. Then, I brainstormed with a group that gave me a different perspective on my project.

We discussed the business value proposition of the possible features. This made me pause and question about the problem even more and if the features truly aligned with the user goals.

From this, I felt that I needed more data to validate the features we came up with.

Back to research it is!

Creating an opportunity for a community to discuss finance topics was the primary feature that I was going to integrate based on research. However, after discussing the proposed solutions to the group, I needed to evaluate the value of the feature. I conducted a second round of research through surveys to validate whether a community feature would be valuable to the user.

Community feature...or so I thought?

Conducting the surveys gave me enough validation to move forward with the community feature. Or so I thought! Aligning business goals and user goals gave me another opportunity to evaluate whether the community feature would be the best feature to integrate.

After much deliberation

Reviewing all my findings at this point, I shifted my feature and decided to move forward with a new feature: time based lessons - a lesson told in story format with a quiz at the end to test the user’s knowledge!
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Finalizing the feature, I listed each solution and prioritized them into a product feature roadmap.

Understanding the Interaction

Ensuring seamless integration

With an existing platform, there was an established information architecture. I needed to figure out where to integrate the new feature without distracting the users from their primary actions on the app.

My goal was to prevent disruption of the current flow states.

Being able to see what tasks are achievable was important to see which screens Leanne would interact with. This also gave me an idea that the primary existing flows would not get disrupted.

Adding another level to this, I explored other ways to show the user’s paths that they could possibly go through within the app. The user flow helped to understand the user’s decisions along the way.

This really allowed me to see other use cases that could realistically happen.

Creating Design Solutions

Building upon the existing design

I sketched the screens of the new Mint Lessons feature from the lessons, quizzes, and to the badges. Ensuring to stay within their current design system, I used design patterns that were already used such as stories framework, cards, and design layouts.
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After finalizing the sketches, I turned them into high fidelity wireframes and prototyped it for testing.

Bite-sized lessons to increase personal finance knowledge

Time has been a factor when learning about personal finance knowledge. Presenting personal finance information in bite-size pieces helps with learning in the short opportunities users’ have.

This creates an opportunity for users to learn when they find pockets of time such as waiting in line.

Validating their knowledge

Testing Minters’ knowledge about what they learned so they can validate their understanding. These quick quizzes helps the user feel more confident.

It also supports intrinsic motivation that users may have when learning.

Celebrate accomplishments

Rewarding accomplishments with badges helps with celebrating small learning wins. A visual representation of the accomplishment further promotes motivation to learn and continue.

Along with intrinsic motivation, these badges create external rewards that satisfy extrinsic motivation and continues the learning cycle.

View prototype

Putting it to the Test

How usable is it?

I was excited to get to this part and test the prototype I built. There were so many questions such as “are they going to find the new feature I created?” or “would they be able to tell right away that I designed this because my design sticks out like a sore thumb?”.

Before conducting the test, I outlined my goals, methodology, script, and success metrics on my usability test plan.

Iterating to the next level

After testing, I gathered all my observations and conducted an affinity map to uncover any patterns. From these patterns, I found really great insights that led to recommendations to improve the current design.

Branding

Though Mint app's design system was established, it was important to create a UI Kit that would reflect all the new additional features. This way, there is a centralized location for all UI and branding elements. It can be shared with others within the team and still be consistent and cohesive with the designs.

Using Mint’s current design patterns, I created a UI kit that includes the new components

Reflection

This project took me on a UX rollercoaster and I was in for the ride. I had my share of ups and downs but I’m most proud of trusting the process and being persevering.
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There are many things I learned from this project but my key takeaways are:

Trust the Process
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Going into this project with a hypothesis and an open mind was helpful as I cruised along the design process. There were many pivots in the project that I didn’t expect. My own curiosity and openness to whatever came my way allowed me that exploration, which then led me to the best possible outcome (and most proud of!) of this project.
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The best thing I can do for my design and process is to get feedback
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My project wouldn’t have turn out the way it did without feedback from my mentor and peers. Working on this project made me have tunnel vision about my own work so it was important for me to get feedback from others. Talking out my designs, ideas, or mental blocks helped me get out of my own lane. Not only was I able to pinpoint gaps and wins in my project, I was able to continue iterating on it every step of the way.

Mint Lessons