Year
2024
Role
UI/UX Designer
Team
Fatih Eren Yalçın
İpek Balsoy
İrem Özübek
Helin Doğa Güler
About Project
Buzz Together is a mobile app that allows you to easily and effectively manage group finances with your friends, partner or anyone else. With this app, you can easily manage the group finances you need for your dream vacation with your partner, a trip with your friends or other purposes.
Problem Statement
Managing shared finances can be complex, requiring transparency, collaboration, and financial responsibility. From tracking expenses to setting collective goals, individuals need a solution that enables equitable contributions, role-based budgeting, and open financial communication. A comprehensive financial management tool can empower users to navigate shared finances efficiently while fostering financial literacy and long-term stability.
My Role
Problem Solution
User Research
Wireframes
User Flow
Benchmarking
Usability Testing
Prototyping
User Persona
Information Architecture
Competitive Analysis
Research Phase
Benchmarking
At this stage, we examined the existing applications on the market and determined the main user groups, the parts of the applications that were lacking and the most liked features.
Research Summary
17 users participated in interviews.
91 users participated in our survey.
Finance talk is often ignored, perceived as an uncomfortable subject to talk about.
Sharing dynamics and social concerns can come into play according to the dynamics of the social circles in which they are shared.
People feel motivated when the goals are visualised and organized.
More than half of the participants prioritizes budget planning when they are managing their incomes.
First Persona
"Life’s all about finding the balance between creating, connecting, and enjoying the ride."
About Me
Ömer is an Industrial Design student, which means he often spends a lot on projects for his classes. He shares a rented apartment with a friend, balancing independence with the perks of shared living. Social and outgoing, he loves catching up with friends over meals and drinks. He’s single right now but open to a relationship, hoping to find a genuine connection that matches his warm and humorous personality. He lives for the moment.
Digital Literacy
Financial Literacy
Income
Ömer
Student, 22
Ankara
Behaviors
Organizes frequent hangouts, picking bars or spots where everyone can relax
Does not track general budget.
Goals
Balancing fun with responsibilities. Finding a way to enjoy his social life while managing school projects and budget responsibilities more effectively.
Meeting new people and building strong connections, especially since he values his social life highly. He want to find people who won’t judge him for his choices.
Needs
Structure for prioritizing. Support in organizing his responsibilities to help him juggle both social life and school commitments more effectively.
A tool to remind him and his friends of deadlines or responsibilities, especially with group projects or shared tasks.
A clear, easy system to track expenses, helping him get through the end of month with social spending with essential costs like project materials and rent.
Pain Points
He wonders if sharing small expenses with his group of friends would make him look stingy.
He doesn’t make any short/long term plans, effecting his future plans with friends.
Because he doesn't keep track of his financial situation, he finds himself strapped for cash at the end of the month.
Ömer's Journey Map
Realization State
Change
Awareness
Change
Ignoring the Problems
Avoidance
Unawareness
Spending money at cafes
Doesn’t realize how everything adds up with little unbalances
Enjoys social life
Feels free to spend without stress
Use relatable communication means
Easy tracking
A reminder system
Not disturbing alerts
Automate reminders and payments in shared expenses.
Offer friendly communication tools.
Simplified budgeting
Motivation sources
Gamify financial management.
Providing small but actionable steps.
Notices financial issues but dismisses them temporarily
Feels slight guilt but indifferent
Maintains social relationships by avoiding conflict temporarily.
Becomes motivated to change habits after facing consequences.
Low balance notification on his phone
His roommate reminds him of upcoming rent
Ignores a bill reminder notification while chatting with friends.
Procrastinates on payments.
Misses a rent payment
Has to borrrow money from family or friends
Struggles to sustain new habits.
Feels a sense of accomplishment.
Banking App
Google Docs
Snooze Button
Whatsapp Group
Starting The Journey
Stages of Journey
Phases
Feelings Adjective
Touch Points
Pain Points
Gain Points
Opportunities
Realizing Challanges
Realization
🌟😊
💪😟
🤝🙂
😰💼
😞💔
Second Persona
"Adventure is our compass, but I’m learning that clarity is the anchor we need."
About Me
Cem, a 28-year-old remote video-game designer, loves adventure and travels the world with his newly wedded wife and funds winter trips with his best friends through work incomes. He likes to do ski competitions with his friends and likes the friendly competitiveness. However, their dream of buying a caravan is complicated by irregular financial planning. Recently, Cem has felt a growing need for clarity about their finances, since he doesn’t feel comfortable enough talking about this topic. He hopes an organized budgeting and communication system can help them reach their goals.
Digital Literacy
Financial Literacy
Income
Cem
Game Designer, 30
Ankara
Behaviors
Travels a lot with his friends.
Despite his adventurous nature, he is increasingly conscious of his shared financial situations and seeks to manage money carefully.
Goals
Their primary long-term goal is to buy a caravan giving them luxury for their travels
While committed to their goal of buying a caravan , Cem still wants to enjoy travel and adventure in a more financially fair way.
Maintaining financial discipline to ensure regular savings for his goals
Needs
Needs recommendations to make progress toward their goal of buying a caravan
Needs a system to track budgeting of different groups in a single space
Motivations for encouraging to stick to a goal.
Needs flexible savings for covering for unexpected travel expenses.
Adjusting group dynamics transparency depending on different groups
Pain Points
Travels frequently. Has a hard time establishing a consistent savings routine
Always ends up paying the total money at the planning stage, frustrated to lose an important amount of money.
When sharing financial winter trip funds with friends, issues like unequal distribution or delayed payments can result in distrust.
Has a hard time focusing on long term goals, ends up spending his savings before reaching goal.
Cem's Journey Map
Midway Through Savings
End of Month
Saving Regularly
Failing
Group Dynamics
Planning for a Winter Trip
Dream of Buying a Caravan
Vision board in Pinterest
Struggling to estimate how much to save and where to begin
Clear goal with partner, motivated to save for the dream
Offer budget planner with customization options for type of goal and group
Automate savings and provide reminders for travel budget adjustments
Real-time group expense tracker with contribution alerts
Categorizing goals but also showing overall progress
Providing actionable insights and flexibilty
Trying to keep track and be financially stable
Awarness for the need for better tracking
Awarness for the need financial organization and investment
Balancing savings for bills, short and long term goals
Unequal contributions and transperancy issues with group expenses
Juggling multiple goals caravan savings, trip budgets etc.
Not having enough money to save or invest for goals
Excel Sheet
Excel Sheet
Whatsapp Group
Starting The Journey
Stages of Journey
Phases
Feelings Adjective
Touch Points
Pain Points
Gain Points
Opportunities
Facing Challanges
Overwhelmed by Planning
🌟😊
💪😟
🤝🙂
😰💼
😞💔
Reflect on your design journey by explaining how the steps you took contributed to your project. Up to now you’ve completed benchmarking, user research, persona development, journey mapping, and ideation processes. We do not expect to see all these steps as a separate titles in your presentations. The important point is highlighting critical aspects and integration of these outputs to your final decision.
We expect you to communicate your process in a way that aligns with your project’s needs. So, clearly articulate the need or problem your product addresses.
• Include supportive materials such as:
• User flow and information architecture: Show how users interact with your solution.
• Design system: Highlight key components like typography, colors, buttons, card styles etc.
Ideation Phase
Ideation Workshop
In this workshop, we determined which features should definitely be included in the app, which ones can be included, and which ones should not be included.
Round Robin Exercise
Ideation Insights
Making financial goals visible
Customizing for different social circles.
Re-thinking financial communication.
Investment Options.
Gamified experience to increase engagement.
Information Architecture
User Flows
Create Goal Flow
Add Money Flow
Wireframes
Usability Test
Conducted usability test with 6 participant on wireframe prototype.
Before Usability Test
After Usability Test
Create Goal button in Group Detail Page
Turn on Automatic Deposit
Purpose of Goal
More visual explanatioıns
Quick Actions
Arrangement
of Sub-Levels
Create Goal
Next
Purpose of Goal
Buzzing Bills
Recurring fixed expanses like rent, utility or subscriptions that “buzz” into your life regulary to keep things running smoothly
Buzzy Stash
Flexible savings, where you set aside resources for future goals like big purchases or sharing expenses in a group.
Honey Dreams
Save honey for sweet future goals like big purchases or saving for emergency funds.
Honey Split
Easily manage and divide shared budgets for one time purchases within your hive.
House
Goals
Buzzing Bills
Buzzy Stash
Bills Total
Rent
Natural Gas Bill
Water Bill
2354 ₺
Buzzing Bills Breakdowns
All
weekly
monthly
yearly
40000tl needed by 31 December
Rent
40000tl needed by 31 December
Water Bill
Created by Mas Dhimas
from the Noun Project
v
My Honeycomb Settings
Turn on Automatic Deposit
Set an automatic payment directly from your bank account, no extra fees or effort required.
My Total Money Contribution
$500
change
Mastercard ending with 6352
Exp date 04/25
Exp date 04/25
Set Money Cycle
Assign Money Cycle Amount
$100
change
Set Money Schedule
monthly
weekly
yearly
tuesday
wednesday
thursday
Try changing the honey cycle amount from 100₺ to 125₺ to complete the honeycomb goal according to the buzzing bill cycle!
Approve
Goal Settings
My Preferences
Apply
Goal Name
Enter
Purpose of Honeycomb
Buzzing Bills
Flexible savings, where you set aside resources for future goals like big purchases or sharing expenses in a group.
Buzzy Stash
Flexible savings, where you set aside resources for future goals like big purchases or sharing expenses in a group.
1
3
09:41
Create Goal
2
Cousins
6 honeycombs
TL Balance
34.000,000 ₺
+6
+6
Goals
+ create
All
Buzzing Bills
Buzzy Stash
6.000,00 ₺
Buzzing Bills Breakdowns
All
Weekly
Monthly
Yearly
Netflix
Monthly
ChatGPT
Monthly
Adobe
Monthly
Blutv
Yearly
09:41
Groups
Cousins Group
Camp
24.000,00₺
My share
10% completed
Total
5.000,00₺
Remaining
19.000,00₺
Amount
500,00₺
Frequency
Monthly
Date
23th of every month
Turn on Automatic Deposit
Set an automatic payment directly from your bank account, no extra fees or effort required.
Payment Info
+ Add new card
Garanti Bonus Card
Expire date 04/25
Primary
Approve
09:41
Payment Details
Final Design
Home Page
Group Page
Goal Page
Profile Page
Design System
Next Project
Poliray
Let's Get in Touch
Contact me
Or email fatiherenyalcin@gmail.com