Smart Budget Planner
Goal: To design a feature that empowers users with personalized and flexible budgeting tools
Role
Tools
Duration
Context
Bloom is a ultimate financial app designed to help users manage their money with confidence. To support users in building long-term financial habits and engagement, we introduced the new Budgeting Feature - this functionality helps user to managing their finances simple, smart, and stress-free. Allow users to create simple and personalized budgets that match their real-life financial cycles and spending goals.
The Problem 😐
Through discussions with peers, insights from banking professionals, and my own experiences (as someone who admittedly struggles with managing money 😅), I’ve observed a common challenge: many people find it difficult to manage their budgets effectively. This difficulty often stems from the complexity and inflexibility of traditional budgeting tools, which fail to meet users' diverse needs.
HMW 🤔
How might we create a budgeting tool that is fast, intuitive, and flexible, empowering users to manage their finances effortlessly while accommodating their unique goals and lifestyles?
Intake & Discovery
The idea for a budgeting feature was proposed by business stakeholders and product owner after reviewing app usage metrics and observing a lack of engagement. Users needed more reasons to return to the app beyond checking all accounts balance in one place, and categorize spending. Budgeting was identified as a core need.
So… What did I do?
As the UX designer, I participated in a kickoff session with the stakeholders, PM, developers, and data team to clarify:
I've also reviewed the PRD outline with PM to make sure we are on the same page:
Timeline
Competitive & Market Analysis
🚩 Common pain point I found
Rigid budget cycle
Poor setup UX
Lack of guidance
💡 Opportunities
Offer customizable budget cycles (monthly, weekly, bi-weekly, custom)
Streamline onboarding with helpful prompts and smart defaults
Allow users to set overall or category-specific spending limits to stay aligned with their budget goals
Allow users to set budgets for specific events and track their progress toward reaching their goals within a defined time frame
Ideation & Design Process
Observation from the findings, I defined the feature structure and using Figma to created user flow, key components, and low-fidelity wireframe
I shared these designs in quick iteration loops with the PM, and internal stakeholders like the CEO and department directors, getting feedback from multiple rounds…
Uh-oh Moment… 🚧
We conducted multiple rounds of feedback sessions and identified these common points. The team agrees that these need to be addressed before we can move forward with final approval:
Allow users to set budgets for specific events and track their progress toward reaching their goals within a defined time frame.
Originally, we were agree to included this as a core function. However, during a dev review, we discovered it was technically feasible but too time-consuming given our current app limitations. Stakeholders asked for an alternative that could meet the timeline.The visual cues for category budget weren’t intuitive or engaging enough.
Design Iteration & Validation
Based on the feedback, I also conducted a quick internal usability testing with 6 colleagues that representing different user types. As result everyone were happy with the following solution:
I've discovered the existing Tag feature lets users label transactions, in that sense if we can enhance the tag functionality for better expense tracking in a way it can be work the same as 'goal budgeting' with minimal dev effort.
Visual cues for category budget need to be intuitive and engaging for user
Components & Elements
I created modular, reusable UI components that enhance usability, streamline functionality, and ensure a consistent user experience
Results
