Pocket Advisor
UX Research, UX Design
User
Research
Project
Duration
3 months
Role
Researcher, Designer
Tools
Figma, Illustrator
Description
This is my first UX Project in the Human-Computer Interaction program. It is a client project that was a part of my course, INST710 User Research Methods. Dipping my toes into the vast field of user research helped me learn new methodologies in user research, identify actionable insights, and drive my design decisions based on research data. It is a group project undertaken by a team of 4 students including myself.
The client, Dr. Wayne Phoel, is a visiting Research Engineer (Institute for Systems Research) at the University of Maryland. Dr. Phoel has been collaborating with multinational organizations since 2017 in an effort to broaden their portfolio of cutting-edge, high-risk/high-reward technological advancements. Dr. Phoel has also provided leadership in evaluating and executing financial technology research and experimentation. He is now working on an idea to utilize machine learning to tailor behavioral nudges to help people make better financial decisions. And, for our project, he posed the following question: What kind of financial information are graduating students looking for?
The goal of this project was to design a platform as a solution to providing the right financial advice to graduate students. Although the focus of this project was just to gather user data and formulate them into actionable insights, my team and I went further by proposing a solution in the form of an app.
Research Questions
1. What financial services/assistances are most valuable to graduate students who have loan/debt?
2. What kind of sources do graduate students trust the most regarding financial information and advice?
Insights from user interviews
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Participants expressed that they reached out to friends and family the most regarding financial advice as they trusted them the most.
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Participants often did not trust information from bank managers as they felt that they may not have students’ best interests in mind.
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Some participants avoided looking into financial planning as it stressed them out. They chose to be selectively informed about their finances to ease their burden.
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Some participants did their own extensive research before making financial decisions.
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Participants who are international students expressed facing barriers when navigating through a new financial system that is different from practices in their home country.
User Personas
User Experience Model
Since "trust" is a key factor in this project, we created a relationship model that connected advice-seeking behavior to relationships with varying degrees of trust.
Mid Fidelity Designs
Wall Walk
The client presentation was done in a "Wall Walk" format where our peers were also invited to view our designs and processes. Participants and other designers were encouraged to leave critical feedback on the designs and methodologies.
Final Designs
What I've learned
This project taught me about systematically applying user research methods in order to derive research insight. I also learned the importance of the philosophy of contextual inquiry. Contextual inquiry techniques such as shadowing enabled me to observe users to understand their learning behaviors and provided added context to the design directions.