Dana J. Wright

Start to finish in four days:

Here’s the assignment:

The persona they defined is basically me, which made for a short feedback loop. My process included most of the steps I would have gone through if I had a few months, but at warp speed.

Step 1: Research

Checking out the personal finance apps already on my phone

Acorns: A personal finance app I started using a year or two ago. It’s basically a savings account which automatically withdraws very small amounts of funds from my checking account and earns a return on the investment. Acorns lets me define how much they withdraw and how aggressively they invest the funds.

Origin is not direct to consumer. Their customers are businesses, which offer the platform to their employees as a perk. For that reason, I assumed a basic understanding of what the app is for and a relatively high level of motivation from the end user.

Marcus: Goldman Sachs has a personal finance app called Marcus, which I started using when it came out last year. Marcus is pretty basic, but the on boarding process is very short and the integration with Plaid happens right at the beginning. I decided to follow this approach, getting the most painful step done up front.

Step 2: Flow diagram

Pretty early in the planning, I decided that while the goals page was the main feature of the assignment, it was not the main feature of the app. It would be one of many items on a dashboard that all together would comprise a more complete financial picture.

Step 3: Interactions and tooling

I listed out all the interactions/ motion design I wanted to have in the prototype:

Splash screen

Animate keyboard

Populate numbers on phone verification

Save our number pop-up

Check mark bounce

Small check mark bounce

Of the tools I’m most proficient with, I decided the only Figma and After Effects would be necessary:

✅ Figma

☑️ Framer

✅ After Effects

☑️ Principle

Step 4: Style guide

I put together a basic style guide using Origin’s website

Step 5: Design the goals page

Step 6: Design the on boarding process

Two-phased on boarding with different UI to make it seem not so long

Step 7: Presentation

I presented this to the VP of Product and the VP of Engineering at Origin. They liked it very much and came back with a contract-to-hire offer. Unfortunately, I was not looking for a contract role at that time so decided not to take it. But I did get a decent portfolio piece.