Money Vault
UX / UI Case Study
Simplifying Finances. Empowering People.
Emmanuel J. Vida
UX / UI Lead Product Designer
About
Money Vault unifies credit, bills, debt, and taxes into one simple, user-friendly experience.
Problem Statement
Busy users need a simple, trusted platform to manage all their finances without confusion or scattered tools.
Solution
Create a unified, intuitive platform that simplifies financial tasks with clear visuals and smart guidance.
Project Overview
Over two months, I led research and prototyping to deliver user-centered solutions.
Design Process
Discovery
Define
Design
Ideate
Test
Discover
We began with a competitive analysis to identify market gaps and understand user feelings toward similar products, guiding a standout solution.
Competitive Analysis & Heat Map
I evaluated relevant market competitors across core UX criteria, then visualized the findings in a heatmap to highlight strengths, gaps, and design opportunities.
User Research
To inform early design decisions, I analyzed competitor products and user reviews to identify user goals, pain points, and behaviors.
Define
I defined user needs by turning research into personas and empathy maps—clarifying goals, barriers, and insights to guide human-centered design.
Persona: Meet Ruby!
Ruby’s story represents users facing financial stress and limited time, inspiring a clear, simple, and compassionate design.
User Group Ruby Represents
Ruby reflects capable, time constrained users like doctors, students, and parents—overwhelmed by complex finances and in need of simple, intuitive tools for everyday challenges.
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Empathy Map
To deepen understanding, I created empathy maps from expanded persona data, capturing what users say, think, feel, and do.
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Journey Map
Building on the empathy maps, I developed a journey map to visualize the user's
experience over time, highlighting key pain points, actions, and opportunities for design.
Ideate
Used sticky notes to sort values and pinpoint key user pain points for clearer direction.
Value Proposition
Laying out sticky notes helped visualize patterns, align user pain points with product value, and shape a clear, focused proposition.
Value Proposition
To define product value, I categorized the value proposition into functional, emotional, and social benefits tied to user needs.
User’s Main Pain Point
I grouped user feedback and actions to find each person’s main pain point—their biggest block to feeling confident with money.
Information Architecture
With user needs clearly defined, I structured the content into a logical, intuitive flow—laying the foundation for effective information architecture.
Design
With the structure set, I created low-fi wireframes to explore layout, test usability, and shape early interactions.
Wireframes
Low Fidelity
I built a low-fidelity prototype to test key flows, gather early feedback, and guide design decisions before moving to high fidelity.
Dashboard
A streamlined dashboard empowers users like Ruby to manage finances with personalized tips, education, and feedback-driven improvements.
Credit Analysis
Money Vault helps users track and improve credit scores with clear visuals, smart tips, and secure, stress-free tools.
Debts & Goals
Money Vault’s debt & goals tool uses auto/manual tracking and visuals to simplify progress and boost motivation.
Design System
Implemented a design system to ensure consistency, scalability, and efficiency across all screens and components.
High Fidelity Prototype
Turned insights into a polished prototype-intuitive flows, sleek UI, and real-
time feedback for Money Vault.
Test
Validate core flows and uncover friction points in early prototype through moderated usability testing.
Research Goal
Objective
🔍 Top 3 Findings & Actions
1
Navigation & Menu Confusion
Result
Navigation confusion led to removing redundancies, simplifying labels, and improving visuals for clarity.
2
Feature Functionality & UI Bugs
Result
Noticing confusion among users, we simplified category creation by letting them click the pie chart to add, edit, or review budgets directly.
3
Financial Content Clarity
Result
Removed heavy text and made the feature more visual-driven to help users grasp the bigger picture faster.
System Usability Scale (SUS) Test
We used the System Usability Scale (SUS) to assess five participants, visualized below, showing ease of use and areas for improvement against the industry benchmark of 68.
Anticipated ROI
Let’s Connect & Collaborate
Ready to design meaningful experiences and drive your product forward.
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