Spending Plan
Budgeting built for the way people actually manage their money
We had learned a lot over the 8+ years of our previous budgeting feature. So it was time to re-think how we approached the problem.
Here’s the TL;DR on my role on the project:
Lead discovery
Facilitated user interviews
Lead design on initial concepts
Promoted to management mid-project
$2M validation - A major bank liked the vision enough to build their entire financial wellness strategy around it
The traditional model of planning out your income and expenses for a calendar month didn’t match how most people described managing their money in our research.
Most Americans are living paycheck-to-paycheck and our research showed that a paycheck model is how many people approach budgeting.
Their journey looks more like this:
Get paid
Subtract bills due before next paycheck
Subtract amounts for variable expenses (i.e. groceries, gas)
See how much is left over or, if there’s a shortfall, find another income source (i.e. Uber)
Selling the vision
Moving away from monthly budgets was counterintuitive for many stakeholders since it didn't align with their personal experience or how they manage their finances.
So, I created a highlight reel of user interviews. Hearing people explain this workflow in their own words was more powerful than my explaining it. It helped to sell the vision for this new direction.
I pitched it using a simple analogy: budgeting should work like a Nest thermostat. Set your target once, let it learn your habits, then trust it to keep you comfortable. No more manually adjusting categories every week when life doesn't follow your spreadsheet.
Onboarding
This prototype was used to explore the onboarding process and gather feedback during usability testing.
Key findings:
Users resonated with the option to change their budgeting time-frame
Onboarding was too text heavy, users weren't reading all the information
The distinction between recurring expenses and planned spending wasn't clear
Testing the workflow
These are the initial concepts for the category-based budget and recurring expense views.
I put them through an initial round of user testing and found that users were having trouble understanding everything on the screen and weren't sure where to take action.
So further iteration was needed.
Changing roles
In the real world, projects don't always go as planned.
Shortly after beginning another round of iterations, I got promoted to lead the team (while still shipping this thing). I then handed off this project to one of my team members, who incorporated much of the work into a larger redesign of our budgeting solution. I stayed connected to the work in a coaching and leadership capacity as we reshaped our financial wellness product line.