Helping TD customers build savings habits through intuitive goal tracking
MyFinancePal is a conceptual mobile banking solution empowering students and recent graduates through goal-setting, financial insights, and social features to support overall wellness and community. This project was a finalist in the Winter 2024 TD Co-op/Intern Innovation Challenge.
Role
Product Designer
Product Manager
Team
1 product designer / manager
3 business analysts
Timeline
February to April 2024 (7 weeks)
Skills
UX/UI Design
Product Management
01 // PROBLEM SPACE
Design a cutting edge banking experience tailored to the unique needs of individuals who are still in school or transitioning out of student life.
Given the above design challenge, we were tasked to envision new products, digital tools, and experiences to revolutionize the financial journeys of students just starting their careers. We conducted preliminary research on general consumer trends and trends within the financial industry, then narrowed our scope to highlight overall wellness (integrations of mental, physical, and spiritual health) and community and relationship building (opportunities for authentic connections and interactions).
From the challenge prompt, market research, and discussion amongst team members, we drafted a problem statement:
How might we develop a solution to empower students and young adults to achieve financial independence and overall well-being, while enabling community building and social interaction?
02 // USER RESEARCH
I conducted competitive analysis amongst health and fitness applications, mobile banking platforms, and personal finance tools.
I focused on features available within direct competitors (mobile banking applications), along with features within health and fitness which could be applied to the finance industry.
I found the current TD mobile banking app was missing many key features found within the competing apps. Features related to health and fitness, such as goal setting, were also unavailable within primary mobile banking applications. Instead, they were found in separate applications and only utilized by a smaller subset of users.
Key Features missing from TD’s existing mobile banking application
Mobile home screen widgets
Finance planning and strategy capabilities
Quick insights and trends based on account activity
Simultaneously, my team members focused on exploring pain points within the overall customer experience.
They also conducted exploratory research and competitive analysis amongst other financial services and products with existing health and fitness or relationship building aspects.
Overall CX Pain Points
Accessing banking services
Opening accounts and credit cards
Lack of relevancy - due to legal age restriction or limited assets and cash flow
We validated our research findings with TD’s Student Product team.
I spoke to the Student Product team at TD to confirm our user research aligned with their insights, strategies and solutions they were currently exploring, and product viability metrics. From these findings and our own research, I created a quick user persona to guide our ideation:
03 // IDEATION
The Student Product team was focused on fostering in-person connections between TD advisors and students, guiding the direction we took during ideation towards digital experiences and building relationships with users’ existing networks — their friends and families. Our user research revealed the solution had to include visuals, familiar concepts for students, social networking aspects, and personalization capabilities to tailor to individual financial goals.
Low Fidelity Sketches
UI Kit
I created a UI kit comprised of a colour palette, basic typography, and general components based off TD’s existing mobile banking app and added features from our solution.
We conducted product viability testing with students at McMaster University.
Students were provided a high level overview of our solution, and were surveyed on their interest and likelihood of using our solution’s features.
04 // FINAL DESIGNS
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Prototype
05 // REFLECTIONS
Lessons Learned
This challenge was the most research-intensive design project I’ve worked on, as it focused on the solution concept and pitch rather than user flow or interaction design. It was also my first time working alongside business analysts rather than developers and other designers. I learned a lot about communicating with and working alongside other stakeholders, particularly during team discussions. Our goals would often differ, which resulted in the need for compromise - I had to quickly become comfortable with voicing my objectives and reasoning as a designer, and with communicating limitations and constraints while avoiding technical language.
Next Steps
Our team’s next steps should our solution be implemented or considered by TD, would be to involve the respective privacy and platforms departments to discuss risks and limitations. Ideally, this would guide further iterations of our solution.
Similarities were noticed between our solution, and TD’s existing MySpend application, however our research and discussion with the Product team revealed the need for further functionality of the MySpend features and implementation within TD’s main banking app. A possible direction our solution could take would be implementation as part of integrating the MySpend app with TD’s primary banking app, and working closely with the teams behind the MySpend app.
If I were to continue working on this project without TD’s resources, I would like to add in more integration with the existing TD mobile app features, and further build out some of our solution’s features. My team discussed additional ideas such as adding credit card rewards points challenges, where users could compete in solo physical fitness challenges to earn rewards points, or leaderboards and other social features aimed at larger groups.
