How do we provide “financial wellness” for families- a UX fieldwork study
This UX case study provides a summary of my 4 week research and reflection in the Fieldwork module of the “UX Designer Upskill” program from Hyper Island.
Chapter 1: Overview
When this all began, Martina Tranström, our field work module facilitator offered us the option of choosing a challenge from four different options mentioned below:
My first task was to choose one of the challenges with an integrated persona. I decided to challenge myself with financial wellness as I myself struggle in managing my finances so I considered it a good opportunity to learn and educate myself in this matter. This challenge has motivated me to think about better financial alternatives for me and my family.
Goal
I had to start with my assumptions about beliefs of my target group and later gather data to prove my hypotheses and beliefs with real people through qualitative and quantitative research. In the final act, I had to compare my findings and corroborate with my hypothesis, and conclude if that was right or wrong. The findings would decide the next step of the process.
Target group
Personas are fictional characters, which represent a perception of a hypothetical target group that might use the service, product, site, or brand. I wanted this challenge as a learning tool for my personal behavior towards finance and to achieve that having my own reflection in persona. As a new mom my days in and out are so much connected to my baby, hence I wanted to understand how existing parents maintain finance wellness with children around them. So I took the artistic privilege and modified my persona and concentrated my target groups towards “Financial wellness for families”.
Challenge: How might we create a service that delivers financial wellness for families?
Chapter 2: Slicing the problem
In the progress of my research, I started the first step to understand the problem through a tool called Kick-Off Canvas. I wrote my assumptions and initial concepts in regards to my target group, user needs, product ideas and business benefits.
Hypotheses
The kick off canvas helped me to formulate user needs into hypothesis statements. Hypotheses could be thought of as testable assumptions. An assumption is driven from user needs or product needs something that we believe is true, or can be something that we think true in terms of product use. The next step was to prioritize as per user's needs in order of importance (important-less important) and certainty (known-unknown). These were sorted as per my user’s persona understanding.
I outlined the most testable and important hypotheses for my challenge.
Further, I outlined open ended questions to ask the prospective participants. Open questions are central to the success of user interviews. They are used in order to encourage story telling. I kept in mind that questions were neutral and I was sensitive to the framing of information so the results would not be biased.
Chapter 3: The process
To start a different approach for finding insights of my target group I approached two general research methods. I also divided my target group into two different silos so I got a variety of insights. The first family type I selected were “single parents” who were single handedly taking care of finances in their family. The other family type I selected were “regular parents” who took the financial decision of the family together.
Qualitative method- User Interviews- Single parents
The most important process in user research. One on one interviews to hear from the target group gave insightful details that helped us to reflect our hypotheses. It also helped to assess user emotions about their gain / pain points while discussing the hypotheses.
Build up screening survey//I set up 10 closed survey questions to identify the right users for my target group to interview. I built up this screening survey in a Google Form which was easy to read and share. This survey helped me to collect quantitative data to validate the hypotheses.
Recruiting Research Participants// I posted screening survey on various social media platforms like Facebook Groups and Instagram to find some willing volunteers. I tried to avoid known participants and looked for unknown volunteers to have an unbiased reflection on my hypotheses. The process was longer than I anticipated as talking on financial matters is rather personal, however, I did manage to recruit people to interview. Here are my screening survey results:
Drafting semi -structured Interview Guide// I started with an introduction about myself and my project, asked permission to record the session, and then explained the details about the interview, overall making the participants feel relaxed and talk comfortably . The questions were structured to encourage the participants to tell their story, alongside I was active listening the whole time without expressions, to allow the interviewees to speak up without feeling of judgement.
User interviews//I selected 5 participants from the screening survey and with the help of interview guide and using digital technology I conducted my user interviews. Because of the current pandemic situation I couldn’t meet my participants.
I mostly followed the interview guide however took some liberty to ask more details about certain answers. The average timing of interviews was 25–50 min.
Quantitative method- Card Sorting- Regular Parents
I constructed the card sorting activity to build quantitative research data from another part of my target group.Using the same 6 hypotheses with 20 sets of cards where each represented an idea, asking 10 participants to sort the cards by different levels of their understanding. It was an interesting way to understand the users’ liking in closed survey methods.
Chapter 4: Research deliverables
With two different types of users in the same target group this is what I found:
Synthesizing interview data
I used the process affinity mapping (synthesizing and sorting data into common themes) to exhibit flows and patterns in behaviours and emotions of my interviewees. I broke down the interview in several individual quotes. Later based on individual expressions & emotions, I concluded my insights on the hypotheses.
Synthesizing card sorting data
I built a card sorting survey on UXtweak.com, with the same 6 hypotheses and 20 cards, I requested participants to sort the cards as per their preferences. The site summarized the results in a table format. At the end I concluded the findings into my insights.
Validation of hypotheses
Now it was time to validate all assumptions I had taken from the start. The data of screener survey, interviews, and card sorting led me to validate and/or invalidate my hypotheses.
New comprehension of target group
Stepping forward with design principles and next step, I wanted to have a grip of our target audience’s emotions & thinking through now gained data from real research findings and user insights, to convey an accurate overview of who my client is. I used all validated hypotheses quotes of my interviewees to build this empathy map (a collaborative tool teams can use to gain a deeper insight into their customers) to give my target group thinking, feelings, execution and performance.
Here I am summarising the user research with the following insight along with design principle and next steps.
Hypothesis 1: User is interested in long term wealth creation for himself/herself and his/her children by investing through different investment methods.
Insight: Users are interested to invest for children’s future so he/she can provide emotional and financial security.
Design principle: Provide our users variety of methods to feel confident that they can contribute towards a better future.
Next step // Further research: Correlation & review of different investment methods available in the market in terms of wealth creation.
Hypothesis 2: User wants to budget his/her expensense in an easy way.
Insight: User want an easy method to have an understanding of monthly spendings.
Design principle: Provide a tool that users can use to budget their expenditures vs their earnings each month.
Next step//Create concept: Understand the user behavior process of budgeting and create a user flow simple process of budgeting.
Hypothesis 3: Users would like to track his/her expense by categories and types. example; medicine, education, grossories.
Insight: User would like to have an overall view of the monthly budget.
Design principle: Provide users with a tool to manage their spendings per category every month so they feel in control of their spendings in different social situations.
Next step // Create concept: Create and compare different expense interaction architecture of the process of categorization.
Hypothesis 4: User has an understanding of investing basics but lacks advanced investment skills.
Insight: User would like to learn more about financial investing and terminology.
Design principle: Educate our users in financial concepts so they feel confident in taking right financial decisions without hesitation.
Next step //Further research: Collect more information about how to train yourself about the investment process.
Hypothesis 5: User consults with his/her investment advisers.
Insight: User consults from a financial adviser on occasions but most of the time like to do his/her own research.
Design principle: Investment is not a simple linear process, it helps users to understand and create their own process where they feel comfortable with their decisions.
Next step // Further research: Look for authentic advising methods/programs that could help users learn intricacies of investing.
Idea prioritization
Using the above research data, I have 5 validated hypotheses and their insights. Hence it is time to narrow down in order of importance for users and feasibility to proceed. Below is the chart based on my understanding:
Chapter 5: Reflection
What could have I done better?
Now I am finished with my fieldwork and concluded my research data, I think I have a clearer picture of what I would do differently when I am conducting this type of surveys for my future projects.
➡First and foremost is to start activities in time to avoid anxiety of running out of time.
➡In one of the interviews I used Google Meet. As this was a new tool for me it took me 5–10 mins to start my interview. I could have got myself familiarized to the tool before interview to save time of my interviewee.
➡In the first interview, I had to rephrase some of the questions to give clarification of the questions. For the next interviews, I modified my questions based on that. I could have conducted a sample interview prior to having a real one to avoid any misinterpretations.
➡I had selected two different family types for card sorting and interviews because of the lack of time I had. I would have appreciated to include both groups in the same kind of survey to get better survey data.
➡For future, any incentive to encourage participation would also help get more traction.
