SPROUT - a new way to keep your budget in pocket.
what does it feel like to never run out of budget again? well, ideally you won’t, if you have sprout!
Sprout offers two simple, but essential, features that would ease the stress level for users to keep track of their spendings AND budget at the same time. Built for everyone in this world, Sprout aims to provoke a seamless user experience in order to better connect the app with its users.
Role: LEAD UX DESIGNER (April 2020 - June 2020)
Responsible for end-to-end product life cycle including producing product & design spec, prototyping & wireframing, conducting user research study and leading usability testing.
BACKGROUND
Most of us must have encountered the awkward situation of spending over an “imagined” budget. At least I always do. I tell myself I can’t spend over $30 a day when I am saving up for my parents’ X’mas gifts, but somehow I always ended up having to juggle around my savings in order to keep myself alive (with bb tea ofc) and also to get them a legit gift. As a result, our team designed a single page app that allows users to complete all actions with one click.
SPROUT was designed, developed, and shipped within 2 months.
As the Lead UX Designer, I was responsible for not only designing the product specifications but also conducting weekly stand up meetings that would allow software dev to communicate with designers, ensuring that everyone is on the same page. Due to the time constraint, our final product captures the essential features but looks a little different from the intended design.
FEATURES & DESGIN PRINCIPLE
From the findings to the left, we decided to include the features of:
setting a daily budget
entering/removing transactions
with four design principles -
“Minimal, Efficient, Intuitive, Low Friction”
UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
User interviews and surveys were conducted and the following information was gathered to uncover the pain felt by individuals:
users find existing budgeting apps to be front-loaded, abstract, antiquated, and unapproachable
users often forget to log their expense in apps because there are too many distractions
users don’t see a valuable purpose of keeping track of their expenses
DESIGN PROCESS
Because of the time constraint, we started the design with wireframes for different variations of mobile language and had teammates vote to decide on one during weekly stand-up meetings. After deciding on a style for our app, we then move on to creating color variations as well as confirming on the features.
Android Style of adding a transaction
iOS Style of adding a transaction
Features
The overall balance shows the “status” of the system(how much money you have left to spend) - the budget to date minus the total expenses entered. Successive days will roll over the status from the previous day, continuously accumulating leftover budget room or overages in the budget.
We decided to evolve our set-the-budget feature into a more interactive interface, allowing users to change the budget by directly tapping on the number - this was a min-viable attempt to create a simple yet efficient framework for users to easily view and set their daily budget.
The Enter Transaction entry form provides users a direct and intuitive form to fill out right away when the app is opened. All fields are required for the entry form to be submitted to the system.
The Latest Activity shows a list of transactions that users have entered, sorted by the latest date.
Color Variance
DESIGN SPECIFICATIONS/DOCUMENTS
RESULTS & TAKEAWAYS
We were able to successfully implement 80% of the designs and delivered a presentation at the end of the quarter to a panel of peers and instructors. However, due to the time constraints, we were not able to perform a usability test after we developed the product. Although we had a rough start (mainly because COVID-19 happened and everything was shifted to online), we were able to manage to work as a team, and an efficient one learning to come to an agreement on our working style.
I learned that sometimes our design cannot be fully executed by the dev team due to various reasons and constraints and learning to work around the constraints become an essential thing for the whole team to reach success. Sometimes each role has to take a step back in order to achieve a better result and just acknowledging that and not taking anything personal is already a huge step forward and what’s left is the team’s communication. Overall, despite of its flaws and limitations, I am proud of this product that was designed and developed in almost two months!