Settle Up App Design

The Project

For my Springboard Capstone project, I wanted to discover how couples split their finances, what are the pain points in that process, and how might I create a digital solution for this problem.

This was mainly inspired by my frustration of splitting finances with my husband and feeling limited by the digital solutions in the space at the time.

The Project includes:

  • Primary/Secondary Research

  • Developing User Journeys and User flows

  • Wireframes

  • Lo-fi and Hi-Fi Prototypes

The Secondary Research

The research focused on couples that (1) both earn commitment and (2) are in a long term commitment or domestic partnership.

The initial secondary research revealed insights to current ways couples are splitting their finances

I also found some general insights about trends in financial relationships, including how it correlates to relationship satisfaction and the rise of unconventional financial dynamics.

The Primary Research

I interviewed 8 people and created an affinity map of the insights from each interview to find categories and patterns in financial partnerships.

Some general insights from the interviews were common goals around working towards and maintaining home ownership; the patterns of having relationships with a passive and a dominant financial partner, and those having a 50/50 split; and the new nuance of dominant female breadwinners.

User Personas

In processing the research, I do multiple exercises to understand the users, their pain points and possible solutions.

I identified three important personas from the user interviews, as identified by behavioral patterns.

1. The Dominant Financial Partner

2. The Passive Financial Partner

2. The 50/50 Split

One of the three personas built out further from the empathy maps above

I initially developed empathy maps for these user personas and then built them out further into actual characteristics and behavior patterns.

Research Insights

There was a pattern in storytelling within these personas about the recipe for success within even example financial relationships.

I used these insights as the basis for the functionality and purpose of the application.

After ideating with the mind map, I then roughed out a potential user journey of how and why they’d use this application

Mind Map + User Journey

After gathering insights and research, I then began to ideate and synthesize the information.

First I did a mind map exercise to draw on different ideas and insights I’ve been gathering and see how they all connect potentially.

I then broke down some of the pitfalls of the lo-fi design to try and optimize before jumping into the high fidelity versions.

Lo-Fi Prototypes

After establishing the user journey, I mapped out the user flow with Lo-Fi prototypes, first beginning with a sketch to rough out the basis of the application.

Hi-Fi Prototypes

When bringing the high fidelity prototypes to life, I wanted to bring familiar financial app elements into the UX of it. Additionally I brought custom-made fun iconography (emoji style) into the visual design.

The onboarding experience proved to be actually more important than the app itself. Setting up preferences was very important to how the app worked on the back end.