Financial Literacy Prototyping - Results

Transcription

1 Financial Literacy Prototyping - Results Michael Gingras

2 Table of Contents Prototype Recap Financial Basics Teacher Finance Tracking Tool with Tips Prototyping - Financial Teacher Session Length Lesson Flow Prototyping - Financial Tracking Student Debt Visualization Savings Visualization Prototype Timeline

3 Prototype Recap A recap of the two prototypes selected in the previous phase to move forward with. These are directly from the last document.

4 Financial Basics Teacher A step-by-step financial teacher that focuses on core concepts of financial health. Platforms Needs / Opportunities Mobile Desktop Poor General Understanding Financial Confidence Poor Current Learning Opportunities How It Works The most prominent concept from brainstorming was a product that supplies the core fundamentals of finance to young adults in Canada. It would follow a structure of small packs, that offer small amounts of information each day, building on the last day s teaching. The core focus would be financial basics; creating a monthly budget (and how to stick to it), detriments of overspending, interest rates, account management, to name a few. Individuals could work through as much as they please, but the goal would be to complete a lesson each day. Each lesson would aim to be 5-15 minutes. This would be ideal if it could offer some basic tracking tools as well, but that would be a secondary implentation. Prototype Learning Outcomes The key understanding is to help determine what structure would help people learn best. The small chunks each day seems proven (Duolingo, Headspace) but seeing how this translates to finance is important. Also, what amount of info each day would also be very important, to teach as much as possible without boring people. 1

5 Finance Tracking Tool with Tips A budget tracker that has a wealth of tips and best practices for spending and saving. Platforms Needs / Opportunities Mobile Desktop Financial Complexity Overspending Can Tailor to Situation How It Works It would be something similar to what s currently found on the App Store; a detailed tracker that manages incomes and expenses. The value proposition here would be additional tips and best practices that make sense of what information you re putting into it. Ultimately, it would also offer greater insight into the money coming in and out. Data visualizations and trends would help clarify spending habits, especially long-term ones to identify key saving areas. This focuses more on increasing understanding of the individual s current state of saving and spending, as opposed to a teaching angle. Prototype Learning Outcomes This prototype aims to learn what information is most relevant to helping people understand their own habits. What kind of visualizations are useful, if long-term habits benefit understanding, and what areas tips and best practices would be most utilized. 2

6 Prototyping - Financial Teacher This section includes all of the initial prototyping for the financial teaching concept. This includes plan, materials needed, learning outcomes, and other details.

7 Prototyping - Financial Teacher Session Length A/B Testing between two sample lessons, of varying length. One will be 5 minutes, and one will be 10, attempting to cover the same content. Prototyping Method This prototype will A/B test between two versions of a sample lesson, in this case, compound interest. Platform for Testing: A. 5 Minute Lesson The five minute lesson will comprise of less information, but still attempt to cover the same extent of content (simply in less detail). A. 10 Minute Lesson The ten minute lesson will be more detailed, offering a little background where necessary, and explain certain elements in greater detail. Both will follow a similar flow, and may vary from exactly the time aimed for, as it will be up to the user to go through it at their own speed. Learning Outcomes The main goal of the prototype is to understand what length of time is ideal. The balance between enough information given, but not being too long is crucial. People have to feel confident in what they learned, but also come back the next day. Mobile Testing Structure: A/B Testing Material / Form: There s also the secondary learning of the overall structure of the lesson; this will be covered separately in it s own test, but this will also offer some insight. The outcomes will be measured through observation throughout the testing, as well as questions following the procedure. Paper Prototyping 3

8 Prototyping - Financial Teacher Key Insights from Prototyping Short and Sweet Participants didn t find that the longer version offered enough to justify the extended length. They rated their engagement the same and were more interested with the shorter one. Stick to What s Relevant The most impactful points were those that directly related to participants. The section on student debt was most impactful and offered shock value to participants, and they cited this as the most interesting part. Teachings are Tough The concept of a financial teacher will be very difficult to do. As I had initially feared, to craft engaging lessons that inform finance while encouraging users to return will be incredibly difficult, and is likely beyond scope. What s Next Narrow Focus to Debt This prototype helped me realize that even with teaching financial information that pertains to everyone, content relating to them is what people are interested in. Student debt was the clear interest out of this lesson, as it is most directly relevant to the target audience. As a result, these teachings are valuable, but I plan to refine the focus to student debt, so it can be shorter and directly relevant to the target audience. 4

9 Prototyping - Financial Teacher Lesson Content & Flow Determining the overall flow of lesson, and what information works best. Also, determining how much information per page. Prototyping Method A lesson to create a budget plan will be followed, with the participant given the goal to successfully create a budget plan with the given information. There will be two different sets of given information, with different parameters, to see how the lesson is for both those who spend more, or tend to save. The flow will follow similar to the first prototyping session. This prototype aims to address content, flow, and clarity of the given lesson. Learning Outcomes The main goal of the prototype is to ensure that the lesson structure is easy to follow, and provides the corrent amount of information. Each page will neither overwhelm the user, or offer so little content they must click endlessly to get through a lesson. Is this lesson easy to follow, and easy to complete? Finally, it also aims to determine the best mix of content (words, visuals, etc) to portray the given information in the most interesting way. Finance is not very visual, but graphs and data visualizations are very relevant. As well, how can utilizing typography, and varying sizes and weight create interest in what would otherwise be a block of text? Platform for Testing: Mobile Testing Structure: Prototyping Flow Material / Form: Paper Prototyping 7

10 Prototyping - Financial Teacher Key Insights from Prototyping The Overall Flow Works Participants found the overall flow of this lesson to work well, and no one had specific issues or concerns about content per page. Flexibility is Important A monthly budget must be flexible to each individual. What they consider a category should be definable by them; do they consider food both groceries or eating out? Or are these separate categories? This kind of freedom is important to allow the budget to work for them, and not the other way around. Clarity is also Important While partially because of set financial data (as opposed to participants inputting their own) there was some confusion over fixed and variable expenses. Also, some participants expressed question over what is a necessary and unnecessary purchase. This must be defined clearly so that users are confident in their inputs and there s no loopholes or uncertainty in the budget. What s Next Refine Lesson Some suggestions like a final overview page showing key numbers would be valuable, as well as a graph to compare various expenses. These are valuable suggestions that may help greater understanding, and increase the impact of sticking to the budget. Consider Best Implementation This hass proven to be a valuable and necessary part of staying on top of student debt, and will very likely find itself in the finished product. As I craft the information architecture, I ll have to consider where this fits into the whole best, be it part of a setup / first user experience, or if it s an optional section, for example. 8

11 Prototyping - Financial Tracker This section includes all of the initial prototyping for the financial tracker concept. This includes plan, materials needed, learning outcomes, and other details.

12 Prototyping - Financial Tracker Track School Debt With an expensive purchase, what is the best way to represent it s impact in various cases? Prototyping Method This will be a pretty straightforward A/B test. Participants will be given multiple representations of student debt of $26,000: if paid off immediately, if paid off in 5 years (60 months), and if the minimum payment is made each month (174 months). Platform for Testing: N/A Different views will be used to convey the given information, to determine what is the most clear and impactful. There will be a visual graph, as well as simply the numbers represented. Learning Outcomes Offering more information than just tracking money in and out is crucial to this application design. Determining the way in which information can be conveyed with meaning is the key learning outcome. This also may help understand what level of financial burden is impactful to people. If they find that they re paying an extra 20% on their student debt by not paying it down as fast as possible, is that enough to spark a change? How many thousands of dollars of debt are required? Testing Structure: A/B Testing Material / Form: Images on Screen 12

13 Prototyping - Financial Tracker Key Insights from Prototyping Personal Information Required Participants expressed confusion over what was going on in the graph. As I feared, it s very difficult to look at financial representations, all with fake information and understand it. I wasn t sure how crucial personal information was. I knew it enhanced understanding, but this prototype showed it s very necessary for comprehension. What s Next Nothing After determining almost immediately this prototype was a failure, I scrapped it. It may be something to revisit later, but I could only really see this relevant once an MVP is made. Once people are inputting their own situations, that would be a better time to determine what visuals will help most. 13

14 Prototyping - Financial Tracker Money Visualization Looking at various ways to visualize money coming in and out, what visualizations are most useful to understand your personal financial state. Prototyping Method Participants will be shown various data visualizations of a financial situation, and asked about the usefulness and clarity of each visual representation. Platform for Testing: Learning Outcomes The goal is determine what kind of visualizations (if any) make understanding their earning, saving and spending better. Mobile Testing Structure: Is This Useful? Material / Form: Images on Screen 17

15 Prototyping - Financial Tracker Key Insights from Prototyping Graphs = Good Participants found all the graphs to be useful visualizations. There wasn t a clear concensus as to what was most useful, mainly because they portray slightly different things. Nonetheless, this was a very straightforward test to see if people like graphs, and lo and behold, people do. What s Next Compound Interest Lessons The five minute lesson will comprise of less information, but still attempt to cover the same extent of content (simply in less detail). Calculator A calculator may be desired, as the paper won t be able to do any math. 18

16 Prototyping Results The success of each prototype was varied, as indicated by each results page. With that said, the initial round of prototyping ultimately served the main goal: to determine the final direction of the project, between the two concepts proposed The final concept moving forward is a mix of both concepts, with a sole focus on planning and paying off debt. This was a very satisfying middle ground for me, I wanted to merge the ideas but it would be much too large a scope, and I wasn t sure how I could work that out. A brief summary is below: Debt Educator and Planner A tool to inform about student debt, and help create a payoff plan. Platforms Needs / Opportunities Mobile Desktop Personal Relevance Financial Confidence Teachings and Tools Combination How It Works This will serve as both an educator and a planner for post-grads to pay off their debts as effectively as possible. It aims to cover two main areas; inform individuals on the damage of long-term debt, while also offering the tools to create an effective plan to payoff the debt quickly. The core features of the product are monthly budgeting, debt information, as well as achievements / progress tracking. Each feature aligns with some key insights from previous research. 20

17 Revised Timeline With some initial prototyping done, a revised timeline to determine what goes on next is required.

18 Next Steps With some initial prototyping complete, the schedule sees an update: Prototype - Session Length Prototype - Track School Debt Prototype - Lesson Content and Flow Prototype - Money Visualizations Process Feedback and Refine Final Idea The prototyping helped determine the final solution: A mix of the two concepts, with a sole focus on debt. There will be some basic money management tools, as well as an in-depth debt tracker, and all of the teachings to help fully understand. Create Structure and Information Architecture This next step will help determine the overall scope of the final product; what is included, and how to relate everything to one another. Rough Prototype - Full Concept A rough, full concept will be developed, and given to participants to ensure that all key features are designed well, and any major design errors are not missed. A/B Test Design Styles I m curious as to whether a simple clean design is desired, or if something a little more colorful and fun (uncommon in finance) is more enjoyable. High-Fidelity Design Build It s that easy!... 20