The objective is to choose a pre-existing brand/company and create a new digital concept that’s an extension of the existing company. I will be designing a unique user experience for the new concept while following the current brand guidelines. The overall goal of what I was trying to accomplish is to ensure the success and improvement of my digital product while making reference to industry-standard design guidelines to make design decisions. In the end deliverable, the targeted customer must be able to easily navigate through the app.
Design Objective
Nowadays, millennials don’t have enough knowledge about credit cards. The main problem is millennials and the upcoming generations don’t have the required qualifications to obtain a credit card But when they do apply and get approved they don’t know how to use it. The app features short lecture videos that are taught by Professors from across the country. Inside the app, the user will eventually be able to receive many financial tips and (learn the responsibilities credit cards come with). American Express University will teach you how to use credit cards responsibly and with the right kind of knowledge that everyone should have access to.
-
Press Release: Download Here
Project Concept
Proto-Persona
Objective for the interviews:
-
To gather an understanding of how much people knew about credit cards. Whether they want to learn more.
-
Find out whether they are cardholders of American Express. Learning which companies they prefer and why.
-
Find how much financial stress people felt
For my user research, I conducted interviews from six different people that ranged from the ages of 16-34 years old. All the people I interviewed goes to college currently, part-time and full time, with part-time jobs on the side.
Questions asked during the interview:
- Are you a cardholder of American Express?
- What credit card companies do you prefer at the moment?
- How often do you feel the financially stressed?
- How many credit cards do you have?
- Have you ever had trouble paying off monthly payments?
- Debit or credit?
- Do you want to learn more so you can help better yourself financially?
Findings from the interviews include:
- Many young adults, who were in the targeted age range, didn't have access to knowledge on credit cards because our education systems do not provide that for us. All of the people interviewed agreed that there should be an educational app that provides
- 4 out of the 6 people interviewed were not an American Express cardholder.
- 5 out of 6 people didn't have any basic knowledge of credit cards.
- 5 out of 6 preferred to use other credit card companies such as Wells Fargo, Chase, and Mastercard.
- 3 out of 6 previously had taken out a loan, had debt, or is in a financially stressful time.
After conducting my interviews, I made affinity maps in order to organize my user research findings. The affinity map consisted of using different colored sticky notes for each person interviewed and writing down main points from the interviews. Then I continued to put together the sticky notes that were similar.
User Research Synthesis
Competitive Analysis
Low and High-Fidelity Designs
Interactive Prototype
-
What did I find most challenging about this project? I find that during this project making design decisions and designing to the Apple Human Interface guidelines were the most challenging. When I'm making design decisions I had trouble whether to follow my intuition (what looks good from my perspective) or choosing to follow the brand guidelines. In the end, I choose to have a good balance between the two. I designed my user interfaces using Sketch. The design kits that were provided in the Apple Human Interface guidelines didn't have every button or icons, so I felt the challenge there because of the limited number of choices. Also, when exporting the design screens there were challenges because every program would alter something whether it be the color or font sizes. Overall, I am very content I learned a lot during this project. I learned how to utilize sketch and I learned how to design user interfaces.
-
What was the most valuable lesson I learned? The most valuable lesson I learned during this project was that I should expect mistakes to be made at every turn because there's no way we could design the perfect interface in the first try. Our intuition might tell us differently but we should always expect and receive constructive feedback because there's always room for improvements.