Overview
For INLS 382: Information Systems Analysis & Design, project groups were tasked with designing an application that addresses a specific problem over the span of a semester.
Role/Team
My role is UI/UX Designer with 3 other UI/UX Designers
Tools
Figma
Timeline
August 2024 – December 2024
Problem Statement
As college students it is often hard to budget our weekly expenses, while also keeping in mind how much money we am saving or want to save up. Oftentimes, there is nothing that we can directly look at that shows a breakdown of my expenses other than my credit card statement. If we are saving up for something, we am just keeping track of it in our head. It would be amazing to have a spot where we can just look at a chart and see how much we can spend for the week after accounting for prior expenses during the period.
Our proposal is to build a user-interface where we can input my weekly/monthly goals and budget and have all of our expenses cleanly broken down and tracked for us in a super accessible and easy to use way.
User Persona
Requirements
- Allows users to input their daily/weekly/monthly budget
- Allows users to input their goals
- Allows users to categorize their expenses
- Keeps track of expenses and different categories
- Tells users whether their monthly spending met or exceeded their budget
Questionaire/Interview
- How often do you set and monitor your financial goals?
- What is the biggest challenge you face in managing your weekly expenses?
- Do you prefer visual charts or numerical data when tracking expenses?
- How do you currently track your expenses?
- What features would you find most useful in a budgeting application?
Low-Fidelity Prototype
High-Fidelity Prototype
Home
- Displays the user’s profile picture.
- Provides quick access to key features: View Budgets, View Reports, View Savings, and Add Expense.
View Budgets
- Shows all user-created budgets, categorized by daily, weekly, and monthly views.
- Allows users to add new budgets, search for existing ones, and edit past entries.
View Report
- Enables users to compare spending against budget goals.
- Provides insights into current and previous months’ spending trends.
View Savings
- This feature was not developed due to time constraints.
- In future iterations, it would allow users to link and track savings accounts.
Add Expense
- Lets users log expenses and assign them to specific budgets and categories.
- If an expense exceeds the budget, the system prompts the user to adjust their budget accordingly.
Conclusion
The goal of SpendSense is to empower college students (and other individuals) with an accessible and organized platform to take control of their finances. SpendSense is equipped with core features like budget creation, expense tracking, and detailed visual monthly spending reports. SpendSense offers students and other individuals a user-friendly way to manage their money effectively. The overall design of SpendSense is simple by nature. This is to ensure that it meets the needs of busy students by helping them make informed financial decisions without it being overwhelming or complex to use. By using SpendSense, we want to encourage users, especially students, to have better finances and to be more aware of their day-to-day expenses. The natural goal of the prototype is to evolve it to include user feedback. After all, the app is useless if users do not find convenience of use in it. We want it to be a reliable and valuable resource for students and other uses. With our focus on simplicity and efficiency, SpendSense truly has the potential to become an everyday tool for promoting financial literacy and achieving financial goals.
Next Steps
Moving forward, we would refine our design by incorporating more user feedback, conducting usability testing, and iterating on our prototypes. Future improvements could include:
Moving forward, we would refine our design by incorporating more user feedback, conducting usability testing, and iterating on our prototypes. Future improvements could include:
- Adding automated expense tracking by integrating with banking apps.
- Developing the View Savings feature – While we couldn’t complete it within our timeframe, this feature would allow users to track their savings progress alongside their budgets, helping them stay on top of both spending and saving goals.
- Implementing AI-driven spending insights to provide personalized recommendations.
By continuing to enhance the interface and functionality, we aim to create a seamless and effective budgeting experience tailored to college students’ needs.