WealthWise
A Virtual Finance Management Environment
Project - Industry sponsored
Company - Iconic Engine
Duration - 3 months
Role - Secondary Research, User Interviews, Affinity Mapping, Design and ideation, asset deployment in Unity, Wireframes and Prototypes (UI Design)
Tools - Figma
Design a VR Environment for a specific Industry with a usecase.
Industry - Education & Financial education/planning for college students
Use case - Training experience
Problem Statement
For many students, college represents their first foray into the realm of financial management. It is the first time they grapple with the complexities of budgeting, expenses, and financial responsibility. Lacking fundamental financial literacy, students often encounter significant challenges in effectively managing their finances on a day-to-day basis.
Opportunity
How might we make learning personal finance management more enjoyable for college-going students?
Solution
Research Methodology
Secondary Research
Interviews with college students
Analyze existing apps and services
Secondary Research
Understanding the Context
User Group - College Students
From student loans to part-time work, living expenses to savings, and then planning for the future, the college journey for any student serves as a foundation for real-world financial responsibilities. Students face challenges in managing their finances because of lack of financial literacy, and in some cases these outcomes are long lasting.
Importance of Financial Literacy among College students:
Financial literacy is an absolute necessity for college goers. It helps with the understanding of budgeting, income versus expenses, savings and investing, and financial planning and goal setting.
Benefits of Gamification of Finance Management
Gamification is an effective tool for teaching financial concepts by using play, rewards, challenges, and competition. And gamification of financial literacy can demystify financial concepts and promote sound money habits by simplifying tricky concepts and making learning feel like a game.
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Increased Engagement
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Motivation
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Real world application
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Immediate Feedback
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Higher retention
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Leveraging the risk factor
Market Analysis
Following are some of the existing digital platforms which help with financial management:
User Interviews
We conducted 5 interviews with college students of 18-21 years of age. Some of the key takeaways from the interviews were:
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Two students agreed that peer pressure leads to over spending sometimes.
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Three students suggested that peer influence can help them with the financial goal tracking.
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They showed interest in the idea of gamified approaches for learning financial literacy. Although, they were concerned with the accessibility of VR technology due to cost and availability.
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Three students preferred traditional methods, while others were open to VR.
More than half the students found it difficult to manage their money.
All of them had a differing opinion on the effectiveness of VR games for teaching complex concepts.
All the students just used their banking apps to track their expenses.
Students desired features like interactive simulations, personalized experiences and financial goal tracking.
Ideation
We brainstormed on how and where the scenarios would play. Keeping the students in mind, we came up with few scenarios where they might need assistance with the financial planning and management.
Scenario 1: On-campus job opportunity
Scenario 2: Opening a checking and savings bank account
Scenario 3: Learning about renter's insurance and health insurance
Scenario 4: Learning about savings
Due to time constraints, we focused only on 'Savings' and implemented it in the environment with a scenario "Buying that Starbucks coffee or not." So the entire interaction and the environment is designed around that scenario. We also included other things related to finance management in the environment. Some of them are:
The Environment
Since it was imperative that we make this experience as relatable as possible for it to resonate with the players, which in turn increases playability, we decided to set the scenario in a part of Purdue West Lafayette campus. Given below is the famous engineering fountain of the campus. Demo
User Interface
After finalizing the scenario, we started working on the UI of environment. How and where can the users manage their financials. We came up with various designs for the UI in the environment. After the sketches mid-fi prototypes and hi-fi prototypes were done by me in Figma.
DASHBOARD - It gives a comprehensive outline of the expenses, savings and checking. There’s a predict feature, which can give predictions of these aspects based on previous history.
TARGET - It gives users a chance to save money for the specific target they have assigned in the environment.
SAVINGS - It represents a monthly, yearly and a weekly graph of savings. Towards the end it also adds suggestions on how users can save money, based on their expenses.
EXPENSES - It represents a monthly, yearly and a weekly graph of expenses. It also provides a detailed list of last transactions in the environment.
These would be the points and money which users earn in the environment
Notifications about job alerts or NPC interactions
Users can select the month and see the statistics
One of the other scenario of 'Buying text books or not,' was tested in the UI visual design. Here, we are showing the interaction with a NPC (Non- Player Character).
The background here is just a placeholder for the environment.
Iteration
Due to the size of the menu icons, we decided to change the design and research more about the UI in VR environments. Our sources were limited here, so we changed the UI design and enlarged elements which were important, which otherwise would have led to discomfort for the users.
Final Design
We further iterated the design by focusing on color contrasts which would be clearly visible within the environment and came up with the final design of the UI in the environment. We also took Purdue University's style guide to further enhance the UI and make it familiar for the users.
Style guide
Typography
Colors
Players will see this main interface screen in the environment.
Dashboard gives them the overview of their finances.
Targets are set by the players to save money.
Players get an overview of yearly, monthly and weekly savings and expenses
Players can see track their recent expenses here.
What more can be done?
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Having an AI avatar which can give suggestions to the player and make their budget plans.
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Campus jobs notifications to earn money in the environment.
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Earn coupons in the environment and use them in real life.
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Multiplayer in the environment where players can make friends. Players can go around with their friends watch movies, go to restaurants, lend money, etc.
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Link real world data with the metaverse and make better decisions with no loss.
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Having multiple scenarios where the students will be given options to save or spend money.
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Allowing players to teleport in a seamless manner.