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Finance • Games • Learning

Bridging the financial education gap for the next generations

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My Role: UX Designer l Team: 3 UX Designers, 1 Project Manager

Project: Sub-brand creation l Industry: Finance & Education l Duration: 2 weeks

My Role: UX Designer, Researcher
Concept Project: Sub-brand creation
Status: Ongoing
Industry: Finance & Education

My Role: UX Designer, Project Manager

Client: Art Startup

Duration: 3 weeks
Industry: D2C & B2B Art Sales

Project Status: Complete

Let's connect!

rosemarypv.designs@gmail.com

Resume

My Work

Home

My Role: UX Designer, Project Manager

Client: Art Startup

Duration: 3 weeks
Industry: D2C & B2B Art Sales

Project Status: Complete

My Role: UX Designer, Researcher l Concept Project: Sub-brand creation l Status: Ongoing
Industry: Finance & Education

My Role: UX Designer, Project Manager

Client: Art Startup

Duration: 3 weeks
Industry: D2C & B2B Art Sales

Project Status: Complete

Project overview

About PlayPal

Financial literacy app for kids, integrating parental guidance with children's need for increased autonomy and trust in a fun, gamified environment.

For this conceptual sub-brand creation project, we selected PayPal as a parent brand for its expertise in finance and finance-related technology.

Key features include a gamified story mode, educational games, and customizable avatars.

My key contributions: User interviews, personas, user journeys, user flows, wireframes, app map, UI design, visual design, prototyping, and user testing.
Team: 2 designers/researchers, 1 project manager

PlayPal's value proposition

Investing in tomorrow

In a world where inflation and rising prices are common topics and finding steady work is increasingly challenging, children would benefit from familiarizing themselves with good financial habits at an early age.

By providing a tool where parents and kids can communicate and learn together, we can help strengthen familial bonds while supporting parents and guardians in providing their kids with resources for their future.

Project scope

Research report

Deliverables

Specification document

Research report

Specification document

Fully operational prototype

The Problem

How might we provide parents, guardians, and children with age-appropriate and accessible financial education resources?

Uploading Artwork

Creating Viewing Rooms

Inventory Management

Contact Management

The Solution

Kids get access to fun learning tools that will prepare them for their future, while parents get the support they need when teaching complex subjects

The problem

MVP features

Levels that adapt to increasing knowledge

Interactive mini games to introduce new concepts

Epic adventures that turn chores into fun tasks

Complete challenges to unlock rewards

Earn virtual coins and badges

Online store for personalized worlds and avatars

Educational content library to support the gamified learning

Videos, quizzes, reading

Parent teaching guides

👾 The Game Plan ↓

Mapping an adequate design journey

Our Process

Discovery

Synthesis

Reflection

Ideation

Delivery

🕵️‍♀️ Discovery ↓

Our team's Structure

Meet the dream team

UX Designer

UX Researcher

Project Manager

UX Designer

UX Researcher

UX Designer

UX Researcher

My key contributions: screen flows, app map, persona creation, feature prioritization, design studio, prototyping, usability testing, user interviews, and API recommendations.

Creating the experience

Our toolbox

Design

Plan

Present

Design

Figma

Notion

KeyNote

Photoshop

We defined the main needs of our two audiences (parents and children), uncovering these four key insights that guided our design decisions

Main Research Findings

Affinity mapping distilled key insights from our interviews, revealing differences between both audiences. These findings informed our decision to balance the needs from two different main audiences: parents and children. With this tailored approach, we aim to spark a positive learning journey that brings parents and children closer together.

Kids learn best through games and interactive activities.

Parents aim to oversee kids' spending, while children seek more autonomy.

Parents aim to teach financial concepts to their kids but lack age-appropriate resources.

Parents allow non-essential spending when the needs vs. wants difference is clear.

Prototype Walkthrough

PlayPal step-by-step ✨

Log in and account creation

We focused on:

Personalized information input to tailor lessons to grade level, learning pace, and age
Onboarding flow broken down into simple, one-task-per-screen steps, with visuals, large fonts, and clear language
Clear instructions to guide first-time users through the process

Future Plans:

Adding an onboarding quiz to determine the appropriate starting level
Implementing a comprehensive avatar builder for more personalized user profiles
Offering log-in options through Facebook, Instagram, and Google for easier access

Homepage and Journey Mode

We focused on:

Engaging story with a compelling narrative arc
Home customizations and unlocking new worlds to explore
Self-paced gameplay to promote independent learning
Multiplayer option, with friends approved by parents for safety
Environment-based lessons (e.g., city = investment lessons, spooky forest = gambling and risky behaviors)

Future Plans:

Enhancing avatar customization for a more personalized experience
Providing a more comprehensive breakdown of diamonds, coins, and badges
Expanding real-world currencies to teach children global financial concepts and expand their cultural awareness.
Expanding the chores game to include more interactive parent involvement

Library and Mini Games

We focused on:

Easy-to-digest materials with short lessons and visual aids
Mini games that introduce concepts to be expanded on in Journey Mode
First mini game on wants vs. needs, directly informed by research insights

Future Plans:

Offering support for parents who need financial education guidance
Fun quizzes to reinforce learning and earn rewards

Achievements and badges

We focused on:

Encouraging words and rewards to motivate progress
Clear progress tracking for easy visualization of achievements
Fun language and positive reinforcement to keep kids engaged
More detailed view for kids compared to parents’ high-level view

Future Plans:

Personalized milestones to celebrate individual achievements

Parent dashboard and achievements

Through user testing, we discovered that parents prefer accessing the app on their phones, so we designed a separate parental view for iOS devices, distinct from the child’s tablet/iPadOS experience.

We focused on:

A high-level overview of the child’s achievements, avoiding detailed tracking to foster independence
Tools to help parents guide their child’s learning journey
Connecting multiple children to a single parent account for streamlined management

Future Plans:

Allow parents to send direct encouragement through a chat feature
Offering expert guidance for parents who are also learning financial literacy or need support with complex concepts

🧩 So, how did we arrive to the end product?

Developmental Education Research

We defined our children's target audience as 7-9 y/o

We determined that the ideal target audience age for the MVP of our product would be 7-9 years old, considering children's understanding of the world in this phase along with their desire to build independence. Here are some of the findings on which we based our decision:

Piaget's stages of cognitive development

Children from ages 7 to 11:

can understand mass, volume, and numbers

grasp the concept of reversibility

can classify objects into various categories

develop the ability to arrange objects in a series or sequence

California's Department of Education

Children from ages 7 to 9:

begin asserting their individuality

need support in learning efforts

are agreeable to adult suggestions

compare work to themselves and others

play by learning with friends

need to hear that everyone’s learning styles is different and doing their best is what matters

User Interviews

Parents and children have different needs but similar goals

Shaped by interviews with 5 parents and 3 kids (7-9 years old), our design approach for a kids' financial literacy app harmonizes parental involvement and children's autonomy, catering to the needs and desires of both users. Here is what some of our interviewees had to say:

"I'll guide my daughter at the start, but I believe in letting her explore and learn independently. It's important for her to make mistakes and figure things out on her own."

- Parent

"As my kids are still little, I prefer to be very involved in guiding them through learning about and spending money."

- Parent

"I like saving my allowance for a long time so I can buy something really big at the end!"

- Child, 8 years old

"I learned a lot from YouTube by myself. I want to buy a mansion, just like in my game."

- Child, 7 years old

"I learned about tax rates at school, but it was kind of confusing at first. My sister also thinks it's hard to learn, but we're trying our best to understand."

- Child, 9 years old

Business Research

Our business analysis revealed a gap in the market

The methodology involved categorizing competitors based on focus and teaching model, revealing a gap for a hands-on, gamified financial learning experience despite the existence of finance-based apps like ABCYa, Greenlight, and Juni. Existing tools were mostly unknown or web-based. This led to the idea of a user journey with progressive challenges.

🧩 Synthesis↓

Abbreviated Personas

We found where our main target audiences meet

Our dual design approach was rooted in user-centered personas derived from research insights. Ivan, the curious 7-year-old, seeks both guidance and independence, while Anna, his mother, plays a pivotal supporting role. Finding common ground between their needs cultivates a strong parent-child relationship through our financial literacy app.

Offers guidance and financial discussions

Provides allowances

Understands the benefits of building good habits

Wants to oversee child’s spending

Actively seeks interactive educational resources for her children

Trusts parents guidance and recommendations

Depends on parents monetarily

Is developing sense of capability and desires more independence

See Full Personas

Learns best with interactive games and activities

Understands

the benefits of

building good habits

Would like an app that facilitates accomplishing their goals

Benefits from a safe and secure learning environment

Trusts financial experts

Trusts financial experts

Abbreviated User Journey

A day in Anna and Ivan's life: A trip to the toy store

See Full User Journey

📱 Prototype ↓

💡 Ideation ↓

Feature Prioritization Matrix

These features made it to the MVP

Given the limited time to launch an MVP, we used a Must/Should/Could/Won't table, followed by a feature prioritization matrix, to prioritize essential features. Prioritizing high-priority/high-effort and high-priority/low-effort features before designing our MVP optimized resource allocation, ensuring crucial elements were efficiently addressed within time constraints for a user-focused and successful launch.

Fun, kid friendly interface

Parents are able to check kids progress and give encourangement

High Priority & Low Effort

Journey Mode (play through levels)

Educational content library

High Priority & High Effort

Rewards and virtual savings

Mini games like Pay Day to introduce new concepts such as wants vs. needs

Designing with a purpose

These product principles guided our design process

Clarity

Encouragement

Gamified education

Self pace

Self-pace and progress tracking

Progress tracking

Sketching Exercises

Collaborative ideation

During our Design Studio, team members independently sketched kid-friendly screens, focusing on different aspects like login, dashboard, environmental art, and gameplay. Collaborative discussions allowed us to synthesize diverse ideas into our design, benefiting from a rich pool of inspiration for our children's financial literacy app.

📬 Delivery↓

User Testing

Improving PlayPal through usability testing

Usability testing with 5 participants provided insights leading to improvements in terminology, navigation, and the addition of a parent login screen. The following changes resulted in a 30% increase in children's direct task success (▲ +30%) and a 27% reduction in parent task completion time (▼ -4s).

Users found it confusing to differentiate between the Journey and Game Zone

In the Journey Mode map, the absence of labels and inconsistent UI style led to confusion about the user's location

"On Drag" prototype interactions were causing issues while navigating the house with the arrows

Mid-Fi Prototype

New users encountered difficulty locating the signup option

We changed "Game Zone" to "Mini Games" for clearer distinction

Hi-Fi Prototype

We introduced a large Sign Up button

We added a location title and updated the screen's UI to align with the overall UI design of the platform

We changed the interaction to "On Tap" and displayed one screen at a time.

Typography

Adelia Regular / 128px

Heading 1

Poppins Bold / 75px / 30px / 24px

Heading 2

Poppins Regular / 48px / 28px / 20px

Body

Style Guide

Ensuring consistency with style guidelines

Creating a style guide was essential to maintain consistency across the user interface, ensuring a cohesive and professional appearance. It served as a reference for design elements, colors, typography, and other visual aspects

Color Swatches

Forest Green

Sky Blue

Mostly used for buttons, banners, outlining, and some categories.

#41BD35

Feature color.

#00A2FF

UI Components

Buttons

Icons

Lemonade Stand

#FFD932

Feature color.

Crystal Waters

#16DFDF

Minor usage, mainly used across onboarding phase and within PlayPal Logo.

Mapping journeys: crafting screen flows and an app map

Screen Flows & App map

Learnings

Project Takeaways

Tailoring design across diverse user needs and devices

This project underscored recognizing and addressing diverse user needs within PlayPal, emphasizing the necessity for flexible design solutions across platforms and devices to ensure an optimal user experience.

The power of consistent design

As confirmed by our usability test results, consistency in UI elements streamlines user experience, reducing cognitive load and enhancing navigation predictability, fostering a cohesive and professional design for user satisfaction.

The advantages of gamification in UX design

Gamification in UX design enhances engagement through rewards and challenges. Some lessons learned from this children's app may prove useful for future designs, even for older age groups.

Learnings

Project Takeaways

Tailoring design across diverse user needs and devices

This project underscored recognizing and addressing diverse user needs within PlayPal, emphasizing the necessity for flexible design solutions across platforms and devices to ensure an optimal user experience.

The power of consistent design

As confirmed by our usability test results, consistency in UI elements streamlines user experience, reducing cognitive load and enhancing navigation predictability, fostering a cohesive and professional design for user satisfaction.

The advantages of gamification in UX design

Gamification in UX design enhances engagement through rewards and challenges. Some lessons learned from this children's app may prove useful for future designs, even for older age groups.

Learnings

Project Takeaways

Tailoring design across diverse user needs and devices

This project underscored recognizing and addressing diverse user needs within PlayPal, emphasizing the necessity for flexible design solutions across platforms and devices to ensure an optimal user experience.

The power of consistent design

As confirmed by our usability test results, consistency in UI elements streamlines user experience, reducing cognitive load and enhancing navigation predictability, fostering a cohesive and professional design for user satisfaction.

The advantages of gamification in UX design

Gamification in UX design enhances engagement through rewards and challenges. Some lessons learned from this children's app may prove useful for future designs, even for older age groups.