My Contributions
Holding User Interviews
Leading Market Analysis
Synthesizing Research
Creating Wireframes
Conducting Accessibility Testing
Process
Using the Double Diamond to frame our Process
To build a strong foundation, we grounded our work using the Double Diamond framework. Doing so helped us structure our thinking, ensuring we fully understood the problem before exploring solutions while keeping users at the very forefront. We also documented our entire process in a design documentation which can be found here.
Figure 1. Our design process, the Double Diamond framework
Discover
Users were hindered by Lack of Literacy, Resource Gaps, and Fear
With our process in place, each teammate conducted a user interview to understand what people were really struggling with. I led one of these interviews, focusing on participants’ banking habits, challenges, and sources of financial knowledge. Together, we turned our findings into affinity maps and mental models, making patterns and behaviors clearer.
Figure 2. Our mental model, created from user quotes and affinity diagrams
Key Takeaways
From these models, I synthesized three core insights that clarified our users’ challenges, motivations, and unmet needs:
1
Lack of Financial Literacy
"I think the scariest part was not having the financial literacy to understand what I'm doing."
2
Insufficient Resources for Preparedness
"I didn't know where to look [for good resources] and didn't know which ones to trust."
3
Fear of Making Mistakes
"I was just worried that if I do something wrong... or get into legal trouble"
With these key insights in mind, we created our define frame using the How Might We framework to capture the core challenges we wanted to address through our design:
How might we help first-generation immigrants confidently learn and navigate the U.S. financial system?
Define
Addressing Pain Points through Personalized Onboarding, Content, and Human Support
With our core insights and design frame in place, we shifted into refining the problem space. Synthesizing user pain points revealed opportunities to make financial learning more engaging and adaptable, which led us to explore a gamified learning approach, designed to simplify complex financial systems while keeping users motivated throughout their financial journey.
Knowing this, I conducted competitor research to ensure our concept addressed a gap not currently met by existing financial tools, confirming we were solving a real and unmet need.
Coursera
Features
A variety of courses in any category
Certified courses and certification programs
Ability to download courses to study offline
Multilingual support with auto-translation built into the platform
Key Notes
Lack of multi-language support
Focused primarily on learning financial literacy, not navigating through the system
Unable to foster a community or get any peer support
Zogo: Learn and Earn
Features
Finance-specific gamified application
Bite-sized lessons for easy learning
Based on real-world scenarios
Reward System
Key Notes
Designed for global learning
Onboarding assumes digital literacy and familiarity with learning platforms
Classes are more academic or theoretically based
No practical tools
We recognized that while each existing application addressed certain user problems, none fully resolved all their concerns. Therefore, we decided to develop an entirely new application.
Ideating Core Concepts
With all the insights in place, we began creating potential design concepts for our project prompt. From this process, we organized our concepts into three main categories, each representing a distinct approach to addressing our users’ needs:
1
Personalized Onboarding
Pain Points Addressed
Users did not know where or how to start finding resources.
Learning apps assumed familiarity with technical devices and immediately offers a wide range of courses
2
Content Support
Pain Points Addressed
Tutorials online were often written in English with minimal translation options
Users often had to search multiple websites
Results were sometimes wrong or used confusing unexplained jargon
3
Human Support
Pain Points Addressed
Users wanted to hear real experiences from people instead of relying on tutorials
Some issues were too niche for tutorial articles to address
Users lacked a community they could reach out to for support
To guide our design process, we established clear requirements that would shape and inform each concept. These requirements acted as parameters and constraints, ensuring each concept aligned with project objectives and user research insights.
Be Transparent
For first-generation immigrants navigating U.S. financial systems, transparency is essential.
Gamified elements can become manipulative and we must work to prevent that from occurring.
Speak Plainly
To ensure accessibility for first-generation immigrants, we must prioritize plain language over jargon, breaking down complex financial terms into clear, easy-to-understand explanations.
Make it Trustworthy
To build trust with first-generation immigrants, we need to show verified, credible financial guidance and ensured compliance with Reg BI, making sources and credentials transparent and accessible.
Develop
Designing Accessible Learning to Empower First-Generation Immigrants
Finding the Navigation
As we moved from insights to concrete design, we focused on structuring the core content and features in a way that would be intuitive for our users. We went through several renditions of our information architecture in order to create one that would focus on our key concepts instead of focusing on creating the entire application.
Figure 3. Our final information architecture after several iterations
Visualizing Concepts
Focusing around our three main concepts, each team member created wireframes following our information architecture to explore ideas and capture different perspectives. This allowed us to experiment with layouts, interactions, and navigation, identify overlapping concepts, and refine inconsistencies, ultimately strengthening our final design approach.
Figure 5. My initial Wireframes ( Left ) and Refined Wireframes after meeting with teammates ( Right )
Designing Accessibly
Once our concepts started taking shape, one of my teammates established a design system to ensure consistency across components, interactions, and visual elements. During this stage, we also conducted accessibility testing, which revealed that our initial color palette did not meet AA standards. We updated the palette accordingly, ensuring that our designs were inclusive and accessible to all users.
Figure 6. WCAG Accessible Color Palette and Design System designed by my talented teammate Arpitha
Deliver
Finalizing the Experience and Sharing Our Vision
High-Fidelity Wireframes
Personalized Onboarding
A personalized onboarding experience to find courses immediately related to the user's needs and goals
Content Support
Easily accessible variety of content support including AI-assisted glossaries, multilingual toggles, and end of lesson quizzes
Human Support
Providing community insight and culturally relevant counseling to guide users through financial challenges
We presented our work to a room of UX peers who evaluated our process and design rationale. Their feedback highlighted the strengths of our solution while also revealing new areas for us to keep iterating on.
Figure 7. Live class feedback during our final presentation
Reflections
What's Next?
Future Steps
If developed further, the next steps would focus on expanding cultural inclusivity and ensuring the experience supports a broader range of users. This includes adding more language and cultural options, as well as transforming key components into fully functional, interactive features. Additionally, conducting more extensive testing across diverse age groups, financial backgrounds, and levels of digital literacy would help ensure the design remains intuitive, equitable, and accessible for all users
Lessons Learned
Early Research is Key
Foundational research shaped our direction early, revealing real user challenges and preventing us from designing from assumptions.
Small Decisions Have Big Impact
Even minor content and layout choices meaningfully affected user flow and confidence throughout the experience.
Engaging Isn’t Always Effective
Usability testing revealed that elements we thought were “fun” or “interactive” sometimes distracted users rather than supporting them.
Design Documentation
First Spark
An in-depth explanation of the process taken to design the interface First Spark
Read Now