BILLEASE

GOALS & CHALLENGES

PROBLEMThrough our research, we found that students often lack an easy way to manage bills with the help of parents or friends. This results in missed payments, stress, and wasted time due to poor communication.
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SOLUTION
We created a bank management app with features that facilitate easy communication and collaboration between individuals when it comes to paying bills

PROCESS

Through ideation, journey mapping, and competitor analysis, our team identified a gap in the market when it comes to paying bills. More specifically, we realized that there were no apps that allowed individuals who were not married to collaborate on finances within a single app.
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PERSONA
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Meet Carmela. Carmela is an international student from Mexico who still relies on her parents financially. Like many, Carmela gets stressed when the topic of finances comes up, especially since her parents do not live in the same country. While Carmela hopes to eventually  become financially independent, she currently cannot afford to do so.

IDEATIONS
Carmela’s situation led us to the following problem statement. Students lack an easy way to manage bills with the help of parents or friends. This leads to missed payments, stress, and wasted time due to poor communication. From this problem statement we were able to come up with HMWs that focused on this problem.

• HMW facilitate paying bills on time?
• HMW encourage paying bills on time?
• HMW help groups document and manage bills?
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Through ideation and brainstorming, our group eventually identified three potential directions, organized on a scale of "control."

FINAL DIRECTIONAfter presenting our ideas, we were encourage to pursue a concept that “created an app that transitioned over time” and ultimately guided the child toward opening their own account with CloverBank. Key features to incorporate included: Options to automate reminders from parents; features that would allow parents to see whether their kids' spending is on track for where they are living; and finally features that managed language and regional differences.

USER TASKSWith the persona, feedback, and goal in mind, we created user tasks that illustrated not only how someone like Carmela would navigate through the app, but also how her parents would navigate alongside her.
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1. Parents helping to fund their child’s expenses.
2. Children who still relied financially on their parents but who weren’t in direct contact with them.

Through remote qualitative user testing, we identified and addressed small issues that had been overlooked in our initial designs, based on the feedback we received. This process ultimately led to the successful creation of an app that fulfills both our persona's needs and the banks's objectives.
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This process led to a design that gives individuals like Carmella the opportunity to be financially supported by her parents, while gradually using the app’s tools and collaborating with her parents to work toward financial independence.

OUTCOMESOur predicted outcome for this app is an increase in new clients for CloverBank by tapping into a previously untapped market.

THE TEAM'S TAKEAWAYS

Our next goal for this app is to incorporate features that address language management and regional differences. Although this feature was initially planned for inclusion, we ultimately decided to implement it in later iterations of the app.