Financial App Settings

Problem

NestBuddy aimed to help households with limited financial knowledge better manage expenses and financial goals. The challenge was to design a clear settings experience where users could manage profiles, notifications, expense categories, and security preferences without friction.

Solution

I conducted competitor analysis, user interviews, empathy maps, personas, and journey maps to understand what users needed. Based on that research, I designed a clear settings architecture and built it through low and high-fidelity prototypes, usability testing, and responsive design across desktop, tablet, and mobile.

The project also included custom icons, animations, style guides, screen flows, and reusable components.

Results

I delivered responsive UX/UI for desktop, tablet, and mobile within 10 weeks, including high-fidelity prototypes, custom icons and animations, style guides, and reusable components.

User interviews and usability testing helped validate and refine the experience, resulting in a clearer settings flow for the intended users.

Research

I started by understanding the product, the market, and the users. This meant researching competitors and talking to people to learn what they needed and where they struggled.

Competitors

I started by analyzing three competing apps, looking at their strengths and weaknesses. I collected customer feedback from app stores and did a hands-on walkthrough of each product to evaluate the experience directly. The analysis helped identify gaps and areas where NestBuddy could do better.

Empathy Map

After the competitor analysis, I shifted focus to understanding the users. I conducted interviews with three people from different family situations to learn about their motivations, concerns, and how they managed household finances.

Before each interview, I used screening questions to confirm participants matched the target user profile, covering their family status, how they tracked expenses, and their general approach to budgeting.

Main Findings

• •Most users expected to see the Profile option listed first in the Settings menu.
• •Many users placed Family Members near the Profile section.
• •There was no consistent pattern for where users placed Notifications, though most put it toward the upper-middle of the list.
• •Security and Export Transactions were seen as necessary but consistently placed near the bottom.
• •One user suggested adding an option to delete the account.
• •Another user recommended including a help and support section.

Improvements made on the Sitemap

• •Reordered the Settings menu items based on user priorities.
• •Added the Delete Account option to the Profile page.
• •Renamed Expenses Categories to Categories & Budgets to better reflect that budgets can be set in that section.
• •The suggestion for a Help and Support section was noted but not included in the Settings menu at this stage.

Usability Testing

After creating the low-fidelity wireframes, I developed an interactive prototype and a usability testing script to observe user interaction and collect feedback.

Changes made based on the users' feedback:

1. 1.Aligned 'Family Member' card design with other notifications. Added tooltips for 'Family Members'.
2. 2.Implemented tooltips for 'Large deposit received'.
3. 3.Introduced tooltips for 'General budget nearly spent'.
4. 4.Included a tooltip guiding first-time users to swipe for settings navigation on mobile.