Making news consumption more accessible for younger audience
Overview
The project was developed as a design concept for a Personal Financial Planning app based on a brief from one of the banks. The primary task was to create a standalone app, building on the bank's existing app, to offer specialized financial planning services to both current users and new customers.
Result
While working as part of a team to develop the overall concept of the app, my specific focus was on the educational component. I concentrated on creating content and features that would enhance users' financial literacy and guide them towards achieving their financial goals, particularly through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) feature.
Who am I designing for?
This is Sarah, a 22-year-old recent graduate who relies on social media for news, not because she wants to, but because traditional news apps feel disconnected from her world.
Problem Discovery
It started when I saw a report by Reuters Institute shows that young adults are relying more on Social Media for news instead of traditional media or news apps.
I conducted an online survey (30+ responses) which also revealed that social media was the top source of news for this demographic (age 18-29).
Through semi-structured interviews of 8 participants helped me understand why more people are turning to social media for news, and their views about current news apps in the market. I found that this trend can be attributed to their time-consuming nature, lack of personalization, and the convenience of social media.
I also strived to find out what users look for when they consume news. Followings insights were derived.
01
Participants want platforms to be engaging so they are actually interested in opening them.
02
They want news that help them stay informed, but also cater to their personal interests.
03
Besides personalization, they want truthful news with facts, not skewed opinions as news.
— How might we create a news experience that combines the convenience of social media with the reliability of traditional news platforms? —
Initial Explorations
I developed the above problem statement with the research insights in mind and started exploring solution sketches for the app. However, I realized this problem statement was too narrow to explore novel approaches and I was designing a social media app for news rather than solving core problems and user frustrations.
Changing the Approach
I reframed the design requirements into three “How Might We” statements that were broad enough to allow multiple solutions, but narrow enough to set focus.
How Might We…
01
make news feel less like a chore?
02
create an experience that is personal, relevant and easy?
03
attract attention and build engagement?
These statements helped me scope down the design goals to -personalization, interactivity, (social) engagement, and visual appeal- providing a clear picture before I moved on to the brainstorming session.
Brainstorming ideas
I brainstormed ideas that aligned with the HMW statements and the design goals. While not all of these ideas made it to the final designs, this gave me an opportunity to think out of the box and explore interesting approaches.
Wireflows
I used wireflows to design the structure of the app flow. Wireflows helped me refine and establish the Information Architecture and User-flows parallelly. This made it easy to design screens layouts, understand user interactions, and make rapid changes to align everything to address user needs.
Final Designs
01
Personalization
While working as part of a team to develop the overall concept of the app, my specific focus was on the educational component. I concentrated on creating content and features that would enhance users' financial literacy and guide them towards achieving their financial goals, particularly through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) feature.
02
Attention and engagement
While working as part of a team to develop the overall concept of the app, my specific focus was on the educational component. I concentrated on creating content and features that would enhance users' financial literacy and guide them towards achieving their financial goals, particularly through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) feature.
03
Short articles and synopsis
While working as part of a team to develop the overall concept of the app, my specific focus was on the educational component. I concentrated on creating content and features that would enhance users' financial literacy and guide them towards achieving their financial goals, particularly through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) feature.
04
Useful features like fact checking and labels
While working as part of a team to develop the overall concept of the app, my specific focus was on the educational component. I concentrated on creating content and features that would enhance users' financial literacy and guide them towards achieving their financial goals, particularly through the FIRE (Financial Independence, Retire Early) feature.
Learnnings
This was the first project where I was alone responsible for end-to-end execution- from research to designing the final product. This helped me improve my visual and UI design skills, and also learn some interaction design skills.
This project helped me broaden my thinking and empathy skills to understand the core of the problem and user needs, and not getting stuck on the surface level issues.
© Framer Inc. 2023