Week 1:

Map

Week 1 our team we began with the Mapping stage, which involved an activity called “Asking the Experts”, where we gathered notes to inform our affinity diagram and the mapping process.

While mapping the current process, our team was able to define the design challenge and chose a target to focus on during Week 2 Sketch stage.

Week 2:

Sketch

Week 2 we moved onto the Sketch stage, where we ideated by sketching potential solutions. After completing different sketching activities, we started highlighting similarities and ideas generated, like personalized financial management suggestions through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and gamification to increase engagement.

Week 3:

Decide

Week 3 began the Decide stage, that led us to the idea of using machine learning and artificial intelligence to look at the user’s spending habits and budgeting goals to provide the user financial decisions that were most promising. Using ML/AI would ideally produce recommendations custom to the user, based on the habits learned through other interactions. 

This would ideally reduce the cognitive load involved in complex decision making, allowing our users to make informed decisions while simultaneously preserving their agency.

Week 4:

Prototype

Week 4 involved prototyping our solution through low-fidelity sketches and high-fidelity prototype in Figma.

Creating a Subtask

Making a Payment

Week 5:

Test

In Week 5 we entered the Test stage, which presented some complications because we could not recruit test with older adult users, because we did not yet have Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Instead we tested with experts, like researchers, who work closely with our target users. During user testing we gained a lot of insight, questions, and research recommendations to consider moving forward.