Learn is a gamified financial education app that allows parents and children to collectively set purchasing goals and achieve them through a customized, modular curriculum. This project was conceptualized to tackle the financial education gap present in younger generations and empower parents to effectively teach these missing concepts.

Duration
Q2,3 2023, 1.5 months

Team
Michelle Cedeño

My Role

Methods
Figma,
Midjourney,
Maze,
After Effects

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Problem

Gaining the knowledge and developing the skills to become financially literate is a lifelong process that begins in early childhood. However, most children do not receive a financial education and even less carry that knowledge into adulthood.

Goal

To develop a product empowering parent-child financial education while reinforcing a positive and long relationship with the bank.

Research

The main focus of our research was to gain an understanding of our target audience: teenagers and their parents.

We wanted to start understanding:

1. Their understanding of financial concepts
2. Their mental models of banks and banking
3. Financial Literacy Education in the family

Initially, my team conducted three branches of research: interviews, competitive analysis, and a survey.

Interviews

We did one in-person interview with a father and 15 year old son, and several phone interviews. These were semi-structured 30 minute interviews to gain insight into teen and parent needs surrounding financial education. By the time my team was creating concept ideas, we would return to these sets and more in order to validate design directions and boundaries.

Competitive Analysis

Our team also conducted a competitive analysis study across different banks and applications in financial education. We categorized methods and applications, and broadly described their effective or ineffective uses.

Survey

We created a survey in Google forms to continue to probe for needs and pains among teenagers in regards to financial education. We only had four responses, but loosely took their answers into consideration for our next step

Personas

Our team developed 6 personas to keep in mind in response the the research- ranging from ineffective teaching for parents and kids to effective teaching.

Scenarios

After generating 30+ design concepts, we each selected our two favorite concepts to make into storyboards and pitch to each other. After that, we took a vote, and decided to move forward with our top three favorite design ideas.

Validation through Speed Dating

After developing the three concepts, our team presented them to eight participants in speed dating sessions. (4 parent-child pairs, where 3 were in the ineffective group and one was in the effective group.)

We used these results to decide upon a direction for our final design solution: to incorporate concepts from Learning Value and Stacking while utilizing the money game app as a platform for learning.

Final Design for App

Finally, our team collectively created and prototyped the final high-fidelity app.
We developed two of our key aspects- how a parent would set up a goal and curriculum, and how a child would proceed through the curriculum.

Service Blueprint

At this stage of the project, my team created a service blueprint to clarify all interactions involving the various stakeholders, and integrations of the PNC service with the app.

Architecture, Wire-framing, and Branding

To build our main prototype, our team detailed out the information architecture and key aspects we would specifically develop for the main pitch. We started with a high-level systems diagram, edit and refined the key wireframes we wanted to call-out, and then proceeded to discuss what branding and design language we all would follow to retain a cohesive design

Impact

Value for Parents

1. Teaching Materials

2. Build a savings habit with teens

3. Conversation Starter with Teen

Value for Teens

1. Gamification of learning

2. Acquire a sense of value through purchase

3. Goal setting

Value for PNC

1. Positioning as an educational expert with parents

2. Increase trust with customers

3. Build a future consumer base with teens

Learn: A Gamified Financial App for Teens