UX case study

Moneylover App Redesign

Amin Parvin

Farnaz Jamarani

9 min read

What is Money Lover?

The Money Lover app is a comprehensive tool designed to help users manage their personal finances effectively. It allows users to track expenses, set budgets, and gain insights into spending habits, fostering better financial discipline. Additionally, the app supports syncing financial data across devices and sharing information with others, making it a convenient solution for individual and shared financial management. Marketed as a "great yet simple manager for tracking personal finance," Money Lover is categorized as a Budget Manager in the business and commerce sector.

The app has an active user base of 200,000 and has received a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 53, reflecting generally positive user sentiment. Despite its utility, survey data highlights some technical issues that users encounter. These challenges contribute to a 15-25% drop-off rate during the initial sign-up stage and 30-40% at more advanced stages, such as connecting bank accounts. The overall average drop-off rate among monthly active users is 20-30%, indicating room for improvement in user retention strategies.

The conversion funnel for Money Lover demonstrates varying levels of engagement and success. With over 1 million downloads, approximately 60-80% of users complete the sign-up process. However, the conversion rate for upgrading to a premium version is significantly lower, ranging between 5-15%. For users who proceed to more advanced features, such as connecting bank accounts or adding financial data, the conversion rate is 40-50%, suggesting hesitation in sharing sensitive financial information. These insights underline the importance of building user trust and enhancing the app’s technical reliability.

Money Lover’s mission to empower users with financial literacy and control aligns with its range of features. The app caters to a diverse audience seeking to optimize their personal and shared finances by providing detailed insights and flexible financial tools. While its potential is evident, addressing technical issues and improving user retention and conversion rates will be key to furthering its success in the competitive landscape of financial management applications.

Pain Points

The app is challenging to use.
Fears of data breaches may make users hesitant to enter financial information.
The app needs a simpler interface.
Users are not motivated to use the app long-term.
To use it properly, users require a high learning curve.
Limited customization features are also a drawback.
Reporting tools are also too complicated for ordinary people.
It suffers from inadequate financial insights.

The app is challenging to use.
Fears of data breaches may make users hesitant to enter financial information.
The app needs a simpler interface.
Users are not motivated to use the app long-term.
To use it properly, users require a high learning curve.
Limited customization features are also a drawback.
Reporting tools are also too complicated for ordinary people.
It suffers from inadequate financial insights.

Competitors Analysis

Ideation

During the ideation phase of the Money Lover case study, the design team used design thinking to explore innovative features that would address the needs of individual and small business users. Building on the empathy and concept definition phases, we sought solutions to accelerate the app's functionality while improving the user experience. Key ideas included:

Introducing a small business budgeting section.

Adding a digital wallet.

Adding an investment feature to the wallet.

Creating a new revenue model through commission fees.

These ideas align with the overall goal of simplifying financial management for individuals and small businesses and ensuring the app's sustainability.

In shaping these ideas, neurodesign principles played a key role in ensuring that the new features resonated cognitively and emotionally with users. Among the tenets of neurodesign, mental processing influences the new sections, especially the wallet and budget, by simplifying complex images and processes to create an easy-to-understand and user-friendly navigation. For example, the wallet feature is designed to help users quickly access their balances, investments, and transactions. The principle of first impressions in the design of the small business budgeting interface implies a kind of professional aesthetic while still making the new features accessible. By focusing on these principles, we ensured that the new features would be seamless and engaging from the moment users interact with them.

Also, integrating behavioral economics into the design of the investment section of the wallet seems essential. Features such as default savings options and flicks for investment opportunities are included to encourage users to use innovative financial tools. In addition, adding a section for personalizing suggestions and sending motivational messages to the user makes an attempt to form an emotional connection with the seasoning of trust between the user and the app. For small businesses, the budgeting tool is designed to encourage goal-oriented decision-making by adding features such as automatic cost classification and profit forecasting. Adopting strategies based on neurodesign guarantees that the solutions provided are practical and satisfying.

Finally, a new revenue model is also created from the application's new user experience and scalability. At this stage, a new revenue generation based on receiving fees from the user's wallet investment transactions can be implemented, with a transparent presentation of costs and added value provided. This revenue generation model not only motivates the user to interact with the new investment feature of the app but also contributes to the financial stability of the application. Ultimately, it can be claimed that by combining design thinking and principles from neurodesign, such as emotional connection and understanding the user's thought processes, we succeeded in designing a reliable foundation of user experience during the ideation stage that can be offered to individuals and small businesses at the same time, while also pursuing the profitability and growth of the program.

User Flow

Research Method

Contextual Inquiry with Financial Context Integration
• Method: Use contextual inquiry by observing users in their real environments while they use Money Lover. During these sessions, engage users in brief conversations to understand their financial habits, challenges, and motivations.
• Innovation: Instead of regular usability testing, focus on how and when users check their finances (e.g., during shopping, after bill payments). This provides insight into how well Money Lover fits into real-world financial situations and reveals contextual needs.
• Outcome: Data on how users actually engage with the app in real-life financial contexts, which may uncover situational features or notifications that could be added.

Micro-Moment Analysis
• Method: Use micro-moment analysis to understand critical points where users turn to Money Lover for quick, essential information. Micro-moments are instances where users quickly check or update something specific in the app, like checking their budget before a purchase or logging an expense after.
• Innovation: Map these micro-moments throughout the day and analyze if the current UI meets these fast, precise needs. Consider features like “smart reminders” or faster access to common actions.
• Outcome: Insights into optimizing the app’s UX for key, rapid-use scenarios and possibly redesigning for one-touch or voice-activated expense tracking.