Retirement Pal Case Study
Overview
Retirement Pal is a mobile learning app for people over 50 who want to see all their financial accounts in one spot to help them achieve their goal to create or understand their retirement plan and set up their budget in a way that will help them successfully execute their plan.
Problem:
People nearing retirement (or just starting) often feel unprepared because they:
- Have no plan.
- Don’t understand their plan or need more support.
- Don’t line up their budget to support their retirement.
Goal: To design a seamless, secure account creation and onboarding experience for new users and an easy, secure login experience for existing users. Also to create enjoyable experiences for users to set up a retirement-friendly budget and set up/learn more about their retirement plans.
Tools: Figma, LucidChart, Lyssna, Photoshop, Pencil and Paper
Considerations
User vs. Business Goals
Balancing the need to provide users with enough information about security so they feel secure linking their accounts with business requirements for promotion of retirement planning specialist during onboarding.
Information Balance
Providing enough information for users to help them easily set up or input their retirement plan and set up a retirement-friendly budget without overwhelming them or giving them unnecessary information.
Feature Overload
Ensuring that features in the retirement and budget set-up flows provide value to users but are also simple and easy-to-use.
From First
To Final
My Design Process
Quick Links:
Competitive Analysis
Research Goals:
- Company Overview/Key Objectives
- Overall Company Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- SWOT Profile
- UX Analysis
The RP target audience is unique (50+). Research found few apps specifically aimed at this audience.
No apps covering budgeting and retirement needs were found. This confirmed a gap in the market.
The two competitors closest to the goals and target audience of Retirement Pal are You Need a Budget (YNAB) and Charlie Financial.
Competitor 1 - YNAB
Competitor 2 -Charlie Financial
User Research & Interviews
User Interview Participants
To better understand viewpoints from people in each target age group (50s, 60, or 70s) regarding budgeting and retirement planning or execution, I conducted in-person interviews in homes and coffee shops.
- Danny – 56, full-time risk management
- Katie – 61, part-time researcher
- Michelle – 54, full-time tennis club manager
- Shanon – 65, full-time pilot
- Straussa – 72, retired
Gain insights into user’s feelings towards budgeting based on retirement goals.
Goals:
- Gain insights into user’s feelings towards budgeting based on retirement goals.
- To find out user’s general approach to retirement planning.
- Identify common user frustrations or “must-haves” in a budget or retirement app.
- Understand user’s primary concerns/fears about using a financial app.
- Confirm whether there is a market for this audience and type of app.
Participant Demographics:
- 6 between ages 50-59
- 6 between ages 60-69
- 6 between ages 70-79
Typeform Survey Goals:
- How many people surveyed currently use an app for retirement.
- To find out user’s comfort level with their retirement plan.
- Get insight into how many use a budget app.
- Understand user’s primary concerns/fears about using a financial app.
- Find out if one age group (50s, 60s, or 70s) is more motivating to use this type of app.
Research Results - Affinity/Empathy Maps
Interview/Survey Results:
- 3/4 interviewed have a retirement plan, but don’t feel confident about it.
- 1/4 surveyed feel confident and educated about their retirement plan (both in their 70s).
- 40% surveyed use a budget app to track expenses, while 60% use a spreadsheet or something else.
- 98% of those surveyed and interviewed responded their primary concern with any financial app is security.
- 100% interviewed expressed interest in an app that connects to all their financial accounts, including retirement accounts AND has a budgeting feature that helps them stay on track with their retirement plan.
- 85% expressed the feature they like most in a budget/finance app is one that automatically enters info for them, but also allows for customization.
- 45% surveyed listed “hard to read” as their #2 frustration with budget/finance apps.
See Empathy Map
User Personas
User Journeys
User Flows
Flow 1 Account Creation
Flow 2 Onboarding
Flow 3 Budget Setup
Cardsorting
Following a few rounds of card sorting I made some changes to the sitemap, including:
- Putting “Manage My Linked Accounts” under “My Account” (not on its own)
- Moving the terms “Link/Delete an Account”, “Linking FAQs”, and “Linked Accounts” under Account Settings since all participants put one or more of them there.
- Observing that no participants created a category “Manage Links” or “Manage Linked Accounts”, helped support the decision to move these into “My Accounts”
- Replacing the more complicated lable with “My Rewards” since several participants created a category “Rewards” or “My Rewards”.
- Simplifying “My Retirement Accounts” based on participant feedback.
Wireframes
Progression of Flow 2 (Budget Setup) from Low-High fidelity
Pencil & Paper
Figma
Figma
Usability & Preference Tests
Goals:
- Determine if test subjects understand the purpose and see the value in the app quickly and easily.
- Observe how easily subjects navigate through the 3 main prototype tasks to see where they get stuck or frustrated.
I conducted moderated, in-person tests with 5 people in the target audience, and 1 slightly younger (to get insights into possible missed opportunities.
Results (top 3 issues identified):
- All 6 participants noticed one pop-up that wouldn’t stay away after being clicked.
- All 6 participants commented on the text size and readability on the darker screens.
- 4 struggled with the final budget setup step.
I fixed 5 of the top issues identified. I also conducted a preference test between two revised color schemes (25 respondents in my target audience). 75% voted for the green version.
Preference Test Results
Usability Test Results
Accessibility Testing & Results
For this project my goals were to check for:
- The 2 versions of button text I was considering for contrast using the WebAIM contrast checker. I confirmed which text color passed and put in 2 more blues to try.
- I tested the main green text color for the logo and non-button app text. The green I was using didn’t pass so I used the lighten/darken tool to find one that passed for all text sizes.
I did 4 other tests to ensure every part of the app fully complied with all accessibility standards.
Style Guide
Reflections & Next Steps
Iterating and designing 3 features of Retirement Pal was a great learning experience.
- My ideas of helpful features are NOT always the same as the target audience.
- Through initial user interviews and survey I was surprised to learn that only a few were interested in a rewards feature.
- Cardsorting and Emapthy Mapping helped me see and correct flaws in the sitemap.
- The color schem I thought would “win” in the preference test, didn’t.
Next Steps:
- Conduct one more round of usability testing with the revised prototype.
- Run the prototype by 3 colleagues again for more input.