Frello App: FinTech mobile software

Overview
What
Many people want to save and effectively manage money but only a sizeable number of them practice it. This solution allows everyday people to understand and manage their finances and navigate a path towards savings.
Why
Frello is a financial management digital product that provides the urban Nigerian population to take complete control of their finances and help influence a healthier financial lifestyle.
My Role
UX Design
UX Strategy
Sector
Banking and Finance
Duration
5 Week
The Task

Create a user-friendly Minimum Viable Product for a new FinTech Startup

The main goal is to create a minimum viable product that can create a good market for a FinTech Startup in Nigeria.
Design Process
I used the design thinking method to structure my design process which follows the pattern in the diagram below:
The Discovery Phase: Research and Analysis
Understanding Nigerians and their financial behaviors
Secondary Research
Due to locational difficulties and financial constraints, I used stratified random sampling to select 30 people who live within Lagos as my sample size. I select from the seemingly lower class, the middle class and the upper class and used the results to draw conclusions on the general behaviors of Nigerians. The studies and surveys that I did helped me gain deeper insight into the financial behaviors of Nigerians. This also helped me understand and explore the problem space even better.
Education and exposure played a huge role in the people’s opinions and behaviors towards saving and the use of digital products. This is because a bulk of the respondents that are already using one product or the other are educated. In addition to this, there is also a notable generational gab as I observed, the older generation seem to prefer the traditional banking system while the youths prefer the use of digital products.
Primary Research
Understanding the user
Survey and user interview were also conducted in order to have a better understanding of my audience.

Objectives:

Some of the things that are I tried to figure out with the user research include the following:
1. How do they feel about mobile banking?
2. What are their frustration(s) about their current banking system?
3. What would they want an upcoming/emerging FinTech Startup to adopt?
Insights - So what did I learn?
Majority of the respondents want assurance about the safety of their funds and they also want an easy-to-use product. This corroborates with the main objective of this project.
User personas
I funneled the insights and observations from the researches to create a user persona.
Feature Ideation
How can I? (Opportunities)
1. How can I provide an easy-to-use product with simple interface?
2. How can the product be used to guide users to make healthy financial decisions?
3. How can it provide loans with minimal interest rate for small businesses?
4. How can their funds be secure?
Long term usage
Many people struggle with saving money even though it requires very simple activity. This is because implementing new habits can be sometimes tasking. This is why I used the Hooked Model by Nir Eiyal to structure the user’s interaction with the app.
The idea of setting a target is to help trigger the habit of saving from the moment they start using the product, but as time goes on, their targets will become less necessary and the habit of saving would become a normal routine for them.
Strategy
1. Use simple data visualization to communicate clearly and efficiently with the users.
2. Give users full control over their funds. Build trust.
3. Avoid the use of negative reinforcement and make it easy for them to manage their activities.
Ideation
Possible features
After I completed the interview phase, I mapped out a list of possible features for the software using Miro.
Feature prioritization
I did this to sort the findings from my research into logical groupings.

The features in sky-blue color very easy to build for an MVP project because they are not as complex as the others and they also bring good value.
Design
Usability Test: Low Fidelity Prototype
Some of the screens designed as low fidelity prototype. After this, user testing was done to see how the users interact with the product. I selected 5 participants using a video recording session.

Introducing: Frello Mobile App

High Fidelity Designs
I joined the user interface design team on this project the inspect the designs and make sure the contents in each of the screens tallies with the findings of my UX research.
Some of the designed screens
Splash screens
Illustrations and texts were used to tell the users about the services provided by the platform even before they create an account. This would help them to have an inkling if the product has the kind of service(s) they want or not.
Log in/Register
Verification
Home Screen/Dashboard
The home screens shows different activities that users can perform. These include Quick Save, Loan, Withdrawal and Fund Transfer. The Home Screen allows users to make quick decisions without overwhelming them with too much/needless information. Users can also keep track of their previous activities/transactions from the home screen.
Screens for Quick Save
These screens are for users to perform quick save. This is different from their daily, weekly or monthly saving. This allows them save any unexpected money that they get - this could include tips or gifts. This features allow them save such money and not spend it wastefully.
Screens for Loan
A user looking to apply for loan can make use of these features. There are different loan options with different interest rates. The user can decide which one they need, according to their economic and financial capability. Also, depending on the saving record of a user, they may not have access to certain types of loan.
Usability Test 2: High Fidelity Prototype
I ran another test with five (5) participants using 1-on-1 session. They made their observations known. They were comfortable using the application and they made few comments.
Users' quotes
"I like the interface. It's easy to understand." - Kemi
“I would also love to see an option for loan. Let it be visible.” - Larry
Implementing feedback
From the feedback, users suggested that they would love to see the LOAN option on the first screen of the dashboard instead of having to scroll further. This implies that for many users, the possibility of saving money and having access to loan (as a result) could be their own motivation.
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There is an arrow pointing towards the right to show the users that there are more services that they can get on the app. This is done to maintain a clean interface as it won’t be aesthetically pleasing to have all the services muddled up on the same screen.
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Reflection

A great experience and much more to learn going forward...

The experience came with a big learning process where I was able to interact with prospective users and other stakeholders. Working intensively on user experience research also exposed me to some other industry practices and enhanced my communication and relationship with other professionals in and outside the field.

Overall, it was a great learning curve.

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