Case Study UX/UI — Nu Finance
Helping NuBank users gain greater control over their money.
The Challenge
How might we empower NuBank users to gain a better understanding of their finances, make informed decisions and ultimately improve their quality of life by having more control over their money.
TLDR This case study focuses on creating a money management feature for NuBank.
Disrupting Traditional Brazilian Banking
NuBank, a Brazilian fintech company, offers financial services primarily through its mobile banking platform.
Founded in 2013 by David Velez, NuBank has gained significant popularity and disrupted the traditional banking sector in Brazil.
NuBank has experienced rapid growth since its inception, attracting a large user base.
As of September 2021, NuBank reported having over 40 million customers.
The company’s success can be attributed to its customer-centric approach, innovative products, and user-friendly digital experience.
Project Goal
The project goal was to provide users with the tools, insights, and resources necessary to take control of their financial well-being, leading to increased financial stability, reduced stress, and improved overall satisfaction
Key objectives:
- Financial Awareness and Education
- Comprehensive Financial Overview
- Goal Setting and Progress Tracking
- Budgeting and Expense Management
NuBank users
To understand more their user profile I created a proto-person which helps direct the next steps of research and validation, all this based on info found through desk research.
- 70% of users are younger than 36 years old; (Jul/2019 — Fonte: https://www.sunoresearch.com.br/noticias/nubank-10-milhoes-conheca-historia/);
- The majority of users are from Middle to Rich/ Class; (Jun/2019 — Fonte: https://www.nucleodoconhecimento.com.br/marketing/permanencia-da-percepcao);
- 53% are women; (Abr/2019 — Fonte: https://www.consumidormoderno.com.br/2019/04/20/nubank-mais-experiencia-menos-marketing/);
After quantitative and qualitative research results, transform our proto-persona into a persona duly verified. During this moment I added and removed some items until get to this final persona version.
User Journey Map
After the persona was done, I went to the User Journey Map which allows to get a general vision of each step followed by the user, and also to know better their actions, thoughts, and feelings on each stage of the process.
Furthermore, it's possible to identify opportunities for the business and improvements on the experience, which can be worked in the future.
The user journey begins when they open the app, search for financial info, check and compare what they can save, setting financial goals.
Research
The data collection of this case study was realized on June 2021, we approached 36 people around Brazil.
The data shown in the research are from the customer which uses NuBank on their daily life.
Talking to the NuBank Digital Community
I started with quantitative research, using Google Forms. The link was sent to two main groups on Facebook and Telegram where users of NuBank filled in the persona criteria.
Qualitative Research
The qualitative research was done with 5 NuBank users, which I contacted through Zoom to deepen points that we still have some doubts about, for example how to better manage their own finance.
The majority of people want to save money with a goal in mind (Ex: New car, house, trip)
- Muitos não conseguem pagar todas suas contas em dias
- Many of them are not able to pay their bills duly.
- Lack of intuitive interface.
- Missing categorizations of their expenses (Ex: Gas, food, rent)
- Lack of stimulus to save and define goals, as well as track their progress
Alternative Solution
After realizing the research phase, collecting data and acquiring knowledge about our users, I decided to prioritize the best opportunities e and then choose which one would bring the most value with the least effort to make it feasible
For such task, I used the Effort x Impact Matrix.
With the matrix as a foundation, I used the HMW (How Might We) to stimulate new ideas of solutions to the problem prioritized.
The Solution
First I used the crazy 8 technique according to the image below, which consist of drawing 8 different screens, each in 1 minute.
After that, I decided to do some sketches using pen and paper.
Pen and paper, I draw some sketches of the user flow, in a more organized and structured way and then went to bring it in high fidelity.
Wireframes — Mid Fidelity
Made the screen below:
- Splash Screen
- Home
- 3 Onboarding Screen
- NuFinance
- NuFinance — Categories
- NuFinance — Goals
- NuFinance — Expense control
- NuFinance — Expense Control Settings
- NuFinance — Expense Control Confirmation
Usability Testing
Tested the prototype in mid-fidelity with 10 people, they need to make the following tasks:
- Check last month's expenses (July)
- Access the goal screen
- Set the expense control to R$500.00 for gas.
All the users were NuBanl customers, which gives a kind of familiarity with the patterns and flow of the app.
The goal of the usability testing was to check if the user was able to complete the task and the time on task.
I believe that we need to invest more in usability testing and make some adjustments to the interface in order to increase the task completion rate as well as shorter time on each task.
Style Guide
Decided to keep the style guide of NuBank. Our goal was not to change improvements on this
Mapped some of the most important elements to build the prototype.
High-Fidelity Prototype
Business Metrics
- Check the percentual of users who use this feature on the app;
- Check the number of users who define their goals and reach them using NuFinance;
- What motivates the user to define a goal and reach the result?
- Check the medium amount saved per user through NuFinance;
Lessons learned
Learned that a UX/UI project is a living artifact, that is, it never is completely fin
The more I study the more I learn about improvements that could be proposed and developed in the future.
Although, what makes the difference is to practice this knowledge to develop myself.
The feeling to understand quite close with users allows us to develop what gives the user possibilities to go from point A to B in a better way
Some next steps:
- Research with more users;
- Info about costs and ROI to investors of NuBank;
- Usability testing with more people and more tasks to do;
E o mais importante de tudo: sempre colocando o usuário como o centro de todo o processo, pensando em soluções que possam tornar a vida dele um pouco mais fácil, e sem deixar de lado é claro, os objetivos de negócio.
And most important of all, always put the user first as the center of the process, thinking about solutions to make their life a bit easier as well as meeting the business goals.