Build Early Money Habits

The educational course for kids that lays the foundation for smart and healthy financial habits.

ROLE

UX/UI Designer + Researcher

TEAM

Individual / Flatiron School

TIMELINE

Q3 2023

Overview

An interactive website that hosts money lessons meant for children aged 10-12 to build early money habits, that their parents learn about and sign-up for a course. This project was part of a 7-day design sprint from low-fidelity through mid-fidelity designs for the web browser experience.

Challenges

  1. Financial education is taught by the time habits are already set in adulthood (via Brookings Inst.)

  2. Children often mimic their parent’s spending habits (via Andrew Schrage)

  3. Nearly 25% of adult Americans state they didn’t receive any education on money topics (via CreditCard.com)

Problem Statement

Parents with children ages 10-12 need a website that allows them to learn about and sign-up for courses designed to build early money habits for children, so that they can teach their children personal finance.

Competitive Analysis

Insights: Key Tasks

  • Sign-up for a course

  • Curriculum overview

  • Provide information on children’s data privacy

  • Payment + Enrollment

Insights: Constraints

  • No direct competitor that completes all tasks

  • Lack of student privacy information

  • Lack of instructor reviews and FAQ

User Flow

Sign-up and Pay for a Course

After defining the key tasks, the analysis helped provide the skeleton for the product user flow, by having the user sign-up and pay for the course. This was part of a larger flow diagram, but based on the MVP (minimum viable product) this was determined to be the ideal flow for the product to be successful.

Design Evolution

Before: Sketches

After: Mid-Fidelity

A. Lack of progress in the enrollment flow
B. Price
C. Additional information

A. Add breadcrumb to assist user
B. Price moved to the bottom to be closer to CTAs
C. Added the student, name and age, for parent to review

Refinement

Landing Page

The landing page was influenced by the provided research as well as the early-fidelement sketches. Factoring that parents would primarily be using this website, there was a particular emphasis on the following:

  • Priority given to courses

  • Benefits of early financial education

  • Use of video

  • Reviews

  • Emphasis on privacy and internet safety for children

  • Multiple call-to-actions

Course Information

The course information screen is much richer in text, with the intent to provide all the information available to help answer any lingering questions they may have about the course, before ultimately enrolling their children. The page features anchor links which redirect the user to content elsewhere on the page.

  • Overview to include all the key important information

  • Emphasis on dates and price

  • Curriculum outline

  • Instructor Review

  • Educational Resources

  • Parental Guidance

  • FAQs

Enrollment Flow

The landing page was influenced by the provided research as well as the early-fidelement sketches. Factoring that parents would primarily be using this website, there was a particular emphasis on the following:

1. Enrollment Screen

4. Child’s Privacy Policy

2. Children’s Information

5. Payment Details

3. Payment Review

6. Payment Success

Prototype

Tying all of this together, the analysis and ideation phases shaped the design of the prototype. This animation goes through the flow of how a user would go from the landing page, enrolling their child, and and then successfully paying for the course. The total flow is 11 steps and it is consistent with what was originally developed during the ideation phase of this project and fully accomplishes the goals set out in the problem statement.