Save Up
A mobile app to help young adults save for the upfront costs of buying a home
February - May 21
Our Team
Emily Ngo
Design Lead
Graphic Design
UX/UI Design
Project Design
Fanny Situ
Project Manager
Client Interfacing
Team Dynamics
Agenda Management
Jocelyn Kim
Research Lead
Research Information
Provide evidence and support
Amal Jafrani
Project Manager
Graphic Design
UX/UI Design
Project Design
Research Methods
Problem
Executive Summary
The home buying process is complicated, stressful, and difficult. Additionally, the amount of young adults who are home owners has been declining in the past decade. What can we do to improve the home buying process for young adults?
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Data Analysis
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Background Research
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Think Aloud
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Contextual Inquiry
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Affinity Diagram
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Storyboarding
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Speed Dating
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Experience Prototyping
Research Insights
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Young adults are unfamiliar with the home buying process
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They're unsure how to save and spend their salary
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They haven't considered all of the financial aspects that go into buying a home
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They prefer personalized platforms instead of generalized steps
Solution
We created a mobile app that helps young adults save for the upfront costs of purchasing home. This app visualizes the user's progress towards their saving goals for each of the financial considerations of purchasing a home. This app also guides the user through the process and helps them understand what steps they need to take in order to reach their goals
Problem
We found that young adults know very little about the home buying process let alone the many financial considerations. Our goal is to develop a product that helps young adults better understand the financial side of the home buying process and begin taking the first steps needed to buy years in advanced before they even consider buying for a home.
"All this information is really overwhelming, I don’t know what half of it means"
Methods
01
Data Analysis &
Background Research
To begin our project, we began by conducting experiential and third party research to determine what resources were available to young adults purchase a home, determine the stakeholders in the home buying process, and understand the needs and wants of our stakeholders. For example, we conducted virtual house tours and visited websites like LendingTree and Reddit.
For our data analysis, we examined data from American Housing Survey from 2015, 2017, and 2019 to look at housing trends associated with young adults. By conducting this data analysis, we aimed to find unmet needs and areas of opportunity.
02
Think Aloud
Based upon our background research and data analysis, we decided to create a tool that could help young adults with the financial side of the home buying process. However, we needed to clarify which aspects of the home buying process we needed to improve. So, we conducted four virtual think aloud interviews to test how people interacted with preexisting financial planning tools for the home buying process. We found that users found the amount of information overwhelming and the terms confusing.
03
Contextual Inquiry &
Affinity Diagram
Based upon our findings from our think aloud, we decided to create a product that would help begin financially planning for the home buying journey. We conducted contextual inquiries to find pain points young adults had in the home buying process, their preferences, and areas that already worked well. We conducted a total of four interviews in which we asked participants to demonstrate how they planned to buy a home or how they would begin planning to buy a home. Afterwards, we synthesized our data using an affinity diagram.
04
Storyboarding &
Speed Dating
We each created storyboards to tackle a potential problem identified in our contextual inquiries and then conducted a speed dating session to determine how user's felt about the problems identified and the solutions that we proposed.
We found that participants responded well to a service that created a personalized and laid out plan for them.
05
Experience Prototyping
We then created a prototype that took into consideration user's desire for a personalized and easy to understand service. We took into consideration that young adults didn't know much about home buying and that our service should help guide them through the process. We then conducted an experience prototyping session to get feedback on how our user's felt about our service and to see if it met their needs
Insights
Young adults are unfamiliar with the home buying process
01
"All this information is really overwhelming, I don’t know what half of it means"
Young adults have no concept of how to save and spend their salary.
02
“I don’t have a salary yet so I’m not sure how much I would put towards a home”
Financial purchases after the home buying process are not considered
03
“I should probably think more about yard maintenance once I move out from my apartment”
Participants liked personalized help instead of reading general steps
04
“I liked asking people I know because then they know what I am going through more than googling stuff”
Solution
Based upon our findings, we strived to create an app that familiarized young adults with how to buy a home and begin preparing to for the upfront costs of buying a home. We wanted to create a personalized experience that covered all financial considerations so that young adults could build a realistic timeline for buying and saving for a house as early as possible. We created wireframe prototype of what our app would like to visualize how our service functions. Below are the components of our app.
Questionnaire
Our questionnaire builds the user's profile which will help guide the user through specific stages of the home buying process. This ensures that user's have a personalized guide through the home buying process and helps the user get an idea of how to save and spend their salary.
Cost Guide
Our service provides a breakdown of the many financial considerations that go into buying a home including costs that come after purchasing the home. Our service sets realistic goals and track your progress towards each category.
Vocabulary Guide
Words that may be unfamiliar to those new to the home buying process can quickly defined with a click of button. This tool will help introduce the home buying process
Individual Funds
By clicking on one of the categories, the user can view a more detailed breakdown of progress such as how they're progressing on their saving goals as well as make any edits to their progress
