FINANCE FOX
Overview
Finance Fox is a mobile app available on both iOS and Android, built to make learning about personal finance simple and fun. It teaches young adults the basics of budgeting, banking, and investing through clean visuals, interactive lessons, and an easy-to-follow experience.
Objective
The goal of this project was to take a user-centered design sprint approach to understand what young users need from a finance app. Research findings directly shaped Finance Fox, making sure it stayed educational, user-friendly, and visually engaging.
Outcome
Throughout seven weeks, the full design sprint process was completed, from research to prototyping, leading to the creation of Finance Fox, an app aimed at helping young adults feel more confident about managing their money.
Team: Ossama Awan, John Randall, Madeline Stone, Victoria Nicholls
Getting Started
We kicked off the development of Finance Fox by using a user-focused design sprint. This method helped us quickly gather insights, map out key features, and bring a working prototype to life within just five weeks
This design sprint process consisted of the following phases:
Phase 1: Understand + Define
Phase 2: Design+Build
Phase 3: Test
DISCOVER + FRAME
Conduct Research
High Level Map
Initial Sketches
DESIGN + BUILD
Rough Wireframes
High-Fidelity Mockups
Trial Run
TEST
Usability Testing
User Scenario
Looking Ahead
Phase 1: Discover + Frame
Setting the Foundation
To kick off the project, I spent time digging into the current landscape of financial apps and the common pain points users experience. The goal in this early phase was to clearly understand the market, spot where existing apps fall short, and frame the right problems Finance Fox could solve.
Methodology
Conduct Research
Devise a Problem Statement
Assemble a High-Level Map
Complete Lightning Demos
Go through the Initial Sketch
Research
Despite their growing financial responsibilities, financial literacy among teens and young adults remains low. A 2024 Fidelity study found that around 25% of U.S. teens have begun investing, but many lack real-world market experience, putting them at risk during major downturns ("The Good and Bad of Teens Pouring Into Stocks", Stansberry Digest, 2024). Similarly, young adults aged 19–29 often struggle with managing credit, loans, and independent living expenses, with programs like Hands on Banking, Financial Avenue, and CashCourse offering some support ("Financial Education Issues for Young Adults", National Endowment for Financial Education). Although financial education can improve long-term behaviors like saving and retirement planning, consistent challenges in experience, evaluation, and application highlight the urgent need for better, earlier, and ongoing financial education.
Finance Fox addresses this need by combining interactive lessons, real-world examples, and simple tools that empower young users to take control of their financial future.
Problem Statement
Young adults need an accessible and engaging way to build real-world financial skills. Finance Fox helps bridge the gap by offering a mobile learning experience that makes budgeting, saving, and investing easy to understand and apply.
High-Level Map
The high-level map for Finance Fox outlines the core user journey, from logging in and navigating tutorials to exploring games, tracking progress, and earning achievements. We focused on creating an experience that balances education and interactivity, with features like quizzes, vocabulary building, friend lists, and expert tips to keep users engaged and motivated.
Inspiration Roundup Comparisons
To gather inspiration and identify industry standards, we conducted a series of lightning demos focused on existing finance apps. We analyzed a range of mobile platforms that offered budgeting tools, investing education, financial games, and savings trackers. During this process, we paid close attention to how other apps approached user engagement, lesson delivery, progress tracking, and reward systems. These insights helped shape key features for Finance Fox, ensuring our app would combine the best aspects of what's already available while staying focused on financial education for young adults.
Initial Sketches
To start shaping the look and feel of Finance Fox, I created a series of rough sketches based on early ideas for the app’s layout and features. These quick drawings helped explore different concepts visually and set the foundation for the app’s design direction.
Phase 2: Design + Build
Shaping the First Prototype
In this phase, I took the best ideas from the initial sketches and selected the strongest concepts to move forward with. After reviewing different approaches, I narrowed down the design direction and organized the user scenarios into a clear, actionable flow. This helped ensure that the first interactive version of Finance Fox stayed focused, realistic, and easy for users to navigate.
Methodology
Draft Rough Wireframes
Create High-Fidelity Mockups
Conduct a Trial Run
Rough Wireframes
After sketching out initial ideas, we developed low-fidelity wireframes to start organizing the structure and flow of Finance Fox. These basic layouts focused on placement, navigation, and user interactions without worrying about final visuals. The goal was to quickly map out the user journey and make early adjustments before moving into more detailed design work.
High-Fidelity Mockups
Once the structure was finalized, We moved on to creating polished screen designs for Finance Fox. These high-fidelity mockups brought the app to life with full color, typography, and interactive elements. The goal at this stage was to focus on the visual style, brand consistency, and making sure every screen felt clean, approachable, and user-friendly for young adults.
Trial Run
To test our interactive prototype, we hosted a trial run over Zoom with four teenagers who matched our target audience. We walked them through different parts of Finance Fox, observing how they navigated the app and where they felt confused or stuck. Overall, they found the app fun and easy to follow, but they pointed out areas that could use improvement, like clearer button labels and more feedback when completing quizzes. Their feedback helped us fine-tune the user flow and identify final adjustments before moving into full usability testing.
Some observations:
During the trial run, testers shared valuable feedback about making Finance Fox even more engaging. One suggestion was adding a weekly overview of the budget calendar on the homepage to make financial tracking less overwhelming.
Another major takeaway was the need for more games, they felt that including a wider variety of simple, easy-to-play games would make learning about finance more fun and help keep users interested over time.
Phase 3: Test
Getting User Feedback
We tested the interactive prototype of Finance Fox with real users to gather honest feedback and uncover areas for improvement. The goal was to see how easily users could navigate the app and spot any challenges they encountered. It also gave valuable insight into how users naturally interacted with the design, helping guide the next round of refinements.
Methodology
Conduct Usability Testing
Perform User Scenario
looking ahead
Usability Testing
To run our usability testing, we developed realistic user scenarios and prepared targeted questions to guide the sessions. After the trial runs, we collected feedback using a System Usability Scale (SUS) survey, which helped us organize responses and spot patterns in how users felt about the Finance Fox experience.
User Scenarios
Scenario 1:
A new user downloads Finance Fox → Creates an account → Connects their bank account → Selects financial topics they're interested in → Enables push notifications for tips and updates.
Scenario 2:
A returning user logs into Finance Fox → Picks up where they left off in a Finance 101 lesson → Redeems points for rewards → Checks the leaderboard to see how they rank among friends.
Scenario 3:
A user logs into Finance Fox → Reviews their weekly budget snapshot → Tracks progress toward their personal savings goals.
What features would make Finance Fox even more useful or enjoyable for you?
Was there any part of the app that felt confusing or hard to use? If yes, which part and what made it tricky?
Are there any sections or features you think should stand out more (or less)?
Would you suggest Finance Fox to other young adults looking to learn about money management? Why or why not?
Looking Ahead
Looking ahead, there are plenty of ideas I'd like to expand on, including building a full-onboarding tutorial to guide new users through Finance Fox and adding features like a live AI chat assistant for real-time support. Strengthening the app’s brand presence through social media would also help connect with a wider audience. Once these updates are made, I'd plan another round of user testing to refine and improve the experience even further.