Empowering financial wellness with Experian
The creation of the Personal Finances tool, a new product for Experian Consumer Services, aimed to help users effortlessly manage financial accounts, receive contextual support, categorize spending, and receive alerts.
My role
Lead designer • Interaction designer • Visual designer • Prototype • Design system
Platforms
Desktop web • Tablet web • Mobile web
Year
2020
Research insights
Our research team identified the following user needs to address for how the product should be designed.
1. Organization
Users faced challenges managing finances seamlessly across various platforms and mediums.
2. Financial knowledge
Users wanted to be financially educated as they used the product.
3. Empowerment
Users expressed a desire for a tool that made them feel empowered.
Opportunity
How might we create a financial tool that’s unified, easy-to-use, and empowers users?
Goals
The following items were key problems turned into opportunities to solve for during the creation of the tool.
1. Cross-platform experience
Enable users to effortlessly manage their financial accounts across various platforms.
2. Contextual support
Design an interface where contextual suggestions could provide educational support.
3. Empower the user
Allow users to set up and view all of their transactions, categorize spending, and receive alerts.
Iterations
The designs went through a number of iterations before we had a shippable candidate.
Challenges
We encountered challenges in data categorization from Plaid, our financial verification service, with inconsistent and inaccurate transaction labels.
To address this, we implemented a user feedback mechanism for reporting inaccuracies and collaborated with Plaid to promptly rectify the issue.
Final designs
These designs were publicly released globally and featured on the Experian Consumer Services site as well as in an Experian blog post about expense tracking.
Outcome
The product was successfully launched into beta in 2020 and the following were key outcomes.
1. User base growth
Gained approximately 400,000 users with a monthly acquisition rate of 75,000 users.
2. Connected accounts
Users connected around 950,000 accounts with various financial institutions.
3. User engagement
8 out of 10 users were actively engaged with the product each month.