Smart Budget Planner
Introducing a smart, flexible budgeting tool for personalized budgets with minimal effort and maximum clarity
TLDR
Bloom is an all-in-one financial app designed to help users manage their money with confidence. To build long-term financial habits and drive engagement, we introduced the new Budgeting Feature - an intelligent tool that empowers user to create simple, personalized budgets aligned with their real-life financial cycles and spending goals.
As a UX designer, I drove the end-to-end design of the feature, from strategy through component development and testing, which delivering higher user satisfaction and engagement.
THE PROBLEM 😐
The original app offered strong data insights, automatic spending categorization, and a basic budgeting feature. However, the budgeting experience lacked depth and flexibility, making it insufficient to drive overall user engagement or long-term retention.
USERS NEED
Through competitive analysis, and interviews with our target users, we uncovered a clear gap: user need a budgeting tool that be able to achieve goals, and align with their real-life financial cycles, like bi-weekly pay schedules or irregular incomes. Without that alignment, the feature struggled to support long-term retention and meaningful uses.
SOLUTION 💡
Introducing a flexible, intuitive budgeting experience that adapts to real-life financial rhythms. With multiple budget types and customizable cycles, users can create budgets that reflect how they actually earn and spend. Making budgeting more relevant, actionable, and engaging for the long term.
CONSTRAINTS
What are the constraints we were facing?
FEATURE TIMELINE PLANNING
To meet the tight project deadline, we coordinated a parallel working schedule. This allowed designers, engineers, and product managers to collaborate simultaneously, stay aligned on milestones, and adapt quickly as priorities shifted.
RESEARCH
I pulled data on current feature usage to identify which features users engaged with most. This helped me uncover patterns in user behaviour and gain deeper insights into their needs.
I did a competitive analysis in order to understand how similar products approached the problem, identify gaps, and translate those insights into opportunities for a more user-centered experience for Bloom.
UX OPPORTUNITIES HIGHLIGHT
IDEATION
Prioritizing flexibility and positive feedback to achieve user need and increase engagement
From our research insights, my team and I explored solutions to boost engagement and position Bloom as a valuable product by putting users first and creating a positive environment that fosters trust and long-term loyalty.
ROADBLOCK 🚧
The ‘Goal Budget’ feature we had planned as a core part of the product was facing technically difficulty, First, due to the financial institution regulation, and second, it was too time consuming given the app’s current limitations. To keep the project on track, stakeholders asked us to rethink the approach, and I worked closely with the team to come up with alternatives that could still deliver value to users.
DESIGN ITERATIONS
Keep it simple, make the current function reusable, and evaluate it.
I led the design iteration by revisiting the current app functions and discovered that the ‘Tag’ feature can be reused to deliver the same value to users. This approach makes it reasonable to evaluate using ‘Tag’ as a replacement for ‘Goal Budget,’ while keeping categories within ‘Category Budget.
MESSAGE HANDLING
Error Messages (specific in category slider):
In collaboration with QA, we focused on error handling in the category slider to prevent invalid inputs, ensure accurate budgets, and help users adjust smoothly.
Positive Feedback and Reminders
Provide positive interaction and timely reminders that keep users motivated and aware of their progress, such as cycle countdowns and spending insights.
FINAL PRODUCT
A smart, flexible budgeting tool that adapts to real-life financial needs. Available in both light mode and dark mode
