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Inclusive Financial Budgeting

Personal project; BMO application feature
2022 | 2 weeks

Budgeting is a key principle of financial literacy, but is not an integrated feature in BMO's (Bank of Montreal; one of Canada's top five banks) mobile banking application. This, along with the prevalence of digital or cashless payments, makes regulating spending challenging.

 

The lack of a budgeting feature and prevalence of cashless payments, negatively compounds for certain neurodivergent demographics who may face limitations with executive functioning and abstract reasoning (such as counting and quantity).

 

This personal project conceptualizes a budgeting feature that would fit into BMO's already existing mobile banking application.  

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Quick Access & Viewing

Swipe on specific charges to view the expenditure category and what your current spending is in relation to your budget.

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View a simple budget-tracker on your home-screen to make informed decisions about potential "impulse" spending (like a delicious iced-coffee or concert tickets).

Edit & Manage  Your Budget

Swipe on specific charges to view the expenditure category and what your current spending is in relation to your budget.

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Review & Understand

Review your charges by budget categories to understand your spending habits and patterns.

  • Design Opportunity
    Based on market analysis and mapping out a timeline of assault, I found that majority of products only address the time between when a threat becomes apparent and the (potential) attack. Current solutions also had their own reasons that made them less effective/popular. There was an opportunity to create a non-violent product that initiated a system to address multiple stages of the assault timeline, through the local community.
  • Look Book
  • Process Highlights
    Background and Problem Space: -Research -Interviews Understanding Context: -Interviews -Mapping -Documentaries -UN reports Ideation and Concept Generation: -Sketches -Prototypes -Probes -Analogous Objects Product Creation: -Material Investigation -Screen Printing -Flat Pattern -User testing Link to process book here (hyperlinked)
  • Key Takeaways
    1. Concept lives beyond the product: In designing for such a nuanced space, the concept requires as much (if not more) design than the product itself. In this particular case, the concept can be adapted into the local ecosystem (through local tailors, weavers, sewing shops, etc) even if the product is not available. 2. The user is also the designer: Ongoing re-design; users (communities) may create alternative or new meanings to the signalling modes, based on their personal needs and the needs of others in their community. 3. Social sustainability: By designing a product or concept that is capable of changing to meet current and future needs (through the user's ongoing re-design), the product becomes a living system that sustains itself.
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