Ninad Ingole│theyelloweye

Simplifying Savings for Young Professionals

Project Brief

Young professionals often face challenges in managing their finances effectively, balancing immediate spending needs with long-term financial goals. Many existing financial apps are complex and lack personalized insights that help users make informed decisions about their savings and expenses. This results in confusion, poor financial planning, and missed opportunities for wealth growth.

The task is to design a financial app that simplifies the savings process for young professionals, offering personalized insights and easy-to-understand advice for managing short-term and long-term goals.

Problem Statement

Financial literacy is crucial, but traditional financial tools can feel overwhelming for Gen Z. We're looking for an innovative solution that leverages AI to create a user-friendly personal finance assistant specifically for this tech-savvy generation.

Challenge

Design an AI-powered personal finance assistant app that helps Gen Z manage their finances effectively. Consider how AI can personalize the experience, provide actionable insights, and gamify saving and budgeting practices.    Create a user journey demonstrating how users interact with the AI assistant to manage their finances.

Working on Defining the Problem

Defining Problem

Which product is being used
What is the main problem
Who are the core users
What are the limitations and assumptions
Metrics

Which product is being used

Since its an app:

Phone
Tablet
Also designed for android as of now

Who are the core users

Gen Z (12-27)
Millennials (28-43)
Gen X (44-59)

What are the limitations and assumptions

Designing for dark mode cause of how popular it is in GenZ (73%)
The app will work without internet connection too in many cases

The features in mind

Gamification
AI assistant (Investment suggestions, tracking, budgeting, goal setting, smart bill negotiation, support for bank accounts, debt management)
Social features
Educational resources
Predictive Insights
Automation
Dynamic saving challenges
Subscription management
Tax perpetration assistance
Spending Insights/patterns
Foreign exchange rates
Family budget

Core Problems

Financial tools being overwhelming for Gen Z
Gen Z not managing their finances effectively
Not enough guidance or knowledge as to how much should they save
Gen Z not saving much and spending a lot in general
Personalization is not there for all people

Metrics

Expanding and Growing
To get new customers (main goal)
  - Increasing the referral rate - saves costs due to low CAC  
- User Retention - Exciting Bonuses  
- Want the users to keep coming back - easy access to balances

Working on Defining the Problem

Defining the User and User Story

Needs to contain 3 things

Who they are?
What they want to do?
Why they want to do it?

Type of user - action/decision - benefit

Focusing on only few qualitative questions to validate and identify problem

User Survey

Questions

What would you expect an AI assistant to do for you in managing your finances?
How do you learn about personal finance topics currently?
What’s the biggest challenge you face in managing your finances?
If an app could help you manage your finances, what features would be the most helpful to you? What would motivate you to consistently use such an app?

Types of Users

User 1

I want AI to tell me where I can invest or save money, what I should strictly not spend on tracking my patterns.
I learn about topics through friends mostly and how they invest and go on that track.
Biggest challenge is how less money I get which is not enough to save or invest but I still want to.
Features would be track my expenses, goals I should keep and few suggestions.

User 2

Since I am going to do a job soon I want AI to tell me I should start with the investment with my first salary itself.
Currently I don’t try to learn about personal finance topics but very much want to learn about it.
I have good enough money I mostly spend it on food and remaining one I think I should save it but that gets spent later on as well.
Just give me suggestions with savings, tracking my finances and stuff and also how we can plan for trips with groups and save money.

User 3

AI should predict a rough estimate for me how much money I would have in 10 years if I give all my data of mine.
I mostly want to learn about it in future soon and deep dive into it once I have enough money though I still invest some in mutual funds
I don’t know where to spend so I just invest money.
I want to know are there any better alternatives to saving cause I don't spend much.

User Stories

User Story 1

I want the app to analyze my transactions and sort them into categories, so that I can quickly understand my spending habits.    

I believe I mostly spend on food a lot here and even order a lot online and don’t keep track of things and get shocked when I get to know how much I actually spent.     

Man today I spent a lot money on all the project prints, food and hotel payment. I don’t think I would be able to spend a lot this remaining month.

Solution:-

Summary of total income  
Grouping of expenses  
Sub grouping of expenses

User Story 2

I want the app to create budgets for each spending category using AI, so that I don’t have to guess how much to allocate.

I want someone to tell me how I should go about spending my money and how I can save it in the long run.

I earn in college but don’t really know what I should be spending and mostly ending saving cause of it.

Solution:  

Suggestions for saving

Suggestions of spending
Trend

User Story 3

I want to see leaderboards or friend group rankings, so that I can compete with friends and stay motivated to save.

I mostly see my friends spend a lot and I don’t spend much on the other side. Would be great to get them to the other side of saving.

Would like to prove that even saving money can lead to things in the long term.

Solution:  

Leaderboard ranking

Saving goal
Challenges

User Story 4

I want to ask for advice on topics like saving, debt repayment, or investment, so that I can make better financial decisions.

I have really looking to invest my saved money but don’t have much idea where to. I just want to simply understand where I can start.

I am very unsure as to how I can spend on all the necessities like rent, groceries etc. and still save money with the less amount of salary I get.

Solution:  

AI chatbot

FAQs with context
Free course suggestions

User Story 5

I want to set shared financial goals with friends through the app, so that we can work together on things like saving for a goal.

Me and my friends have tried to save for a group trip but someone always falls behind, and we won’t be able to track how close we were to the goal.

  I like to plan group activities, but it’s hard to keep everyone accountable for their part of expenses.

Solution:  

Shared goal tracker

Progress notification
Group Rewards

What are we solving for

Categorization and sub categorization of incomes and expenditure.
Gamification with leaderboard and goals/challenges.
AI chatbot giving suggestions and different investment advices.
Educate users about finances.
Sharing savings with different people for a particular goal.

Competitive Analysis

Categorization and sub categorization of incomes and expenditure.     

- Money Manager

Gamification with leaderboard and goals/challenges.

- Duolingo

AI chatbot giving suggestions and different investment advices.   

- Google Gemini

Educate users about finances.     

- Zerodha Varsity

Sharing saving with different people for a particular goal.    

- Splitwise

User Journey Mapping

Will showcase the journey with the interface flow below in the solution

Solution

Check out the whole project here with additional figma screens Figma Link