Julieta Griguol - POLI2FUTURE

A financial app for Politécnico students that fosters sustainability

The goal of this project was to create an easy-to-use system to manage transactions within the campus and to facilitate the exchange of money between students, while helping them to adopt a healthier lifestyle.
To do so we designed a mobile application to foster sustainable behaviors by easing financial management in the university community and also within the city.

Academic project
Role
User experience
User Interface
Video editing
1 month
Teamwork

Problem statement
Students expect Politécnico's mobile application to be more than just the tool that allows them to deal with their academic obligations. They expect mobile touchpoints to be the preferred entry point for anything university-related.

Research

We made an initial survey to explore existing problems on the topic and understand the user behaviors and needs.
There is a card called PoliCard which can be used by students as university credential and prepaid card and we were thinking about taking advantage of it in our new proposal. But with the survey we figured out that most of them never use it because it’s offerings are useless.

We organized a focus group to validate our initial hypothesis about financial and sustainability topics. We planned questions and a practical activity to make it more entertaining for our participants. The resulting insights were helpful in terms of their motivations to take action, their interest on having easy access to PoliMi partners, the benefits of the card and providing opportunities to connect with other colleagues.

After testing with students and teachers, we realized that we should put the emphasis on sustainability, so we did new research to iterate our concept with less focus on the financial side. Proposing a new “green” card to get rid of the PoliCard that had another meaning attached to it.

“People's actions not only affect the environment around them, but also positively affect them as individuals. In fact, improving human behavior has sustainability as a secondary effect, so we can affirm that there is a strong connection between people's well-being and the health of the environment. "

Concept

Our concept consists of an application through which the user can pay for different services and products from partners both inside and outside PoliMi, obtaining rewards that can be used later. It allows them to exchange money between colleagues who use the application and provides useful sustainable and financial lessons. In addition to these, we integrated challenges that promote financial education or sustainable behaviors, which are rewarded when participating.

We used the Card Sorting tool to understand the user mental model, which helped us to build the Information Architecture and provide a great navigation with a tabbed view pattern.

Prototyping

Based on the information architecture and by doing a benchmark to check the current state of art and get ideas, we built the wireframes for the concept. They were useful to test the user flow with users.

UI development

We started searching style inspiration plus having into account the brand attributes to craft a UI style. Then we built a high fidelity prototype, which was used in a class peer review to obtain specific feedback combined with an heuristic test to arrive to the last iteration of our product.

Home

The home page is a motivator featuring a full-height dynamic landscape of PoliMi. On first use, the background will be empty, but when the user performs sustainable actions, new elements representing the type of action performed will be added.

It contains shortcuts to the digital card, lessons and challenges, with a small amount of information and the reward, which spark curiosity and action.

Green Money

It is the reward, which means that when the user carry out an activity, that can be lessons, challenges, purchasing from our partners in the app, the user will be rewarded with the indicated amount of Green Money.

The amount of Green Money earned is shown in the digital card. Besides, as it is a new concept we provided an explanation screen so that users can learn how to use it.

Partners

Search, filter, find where to buy and know how much payback.

Challenges

Discover, get data and register to participate in challenges.

Learn

Get tips, read or watch short lessons divided by episodes.

Wallet

Exchange money with contacts, pay and withdraw.

Teaser video

As I enjoy animating I was in charge of the teaser video of the product, which shows the problem, the concept and the features of our solution.
I used an AI voice to make it more professional and clear, some stock videos, I draw and animated some parts, and digital product templates for the product features.

Takeaways

Throughout the development of this project I realized how important it is to validate each step with the users. I experienced how the product iterated to shape the meaning, experiences and functionality that the PoliMi community was looking for.
The users are the ones who lead the way, with this approach I think it is better to start with a few basic functionalities and by talking with the users we can gradually adapt and evolve the product according to their needs.
Furthermore, I learned that abstract concepts such as sustainability have different meanings for each person, so we cannot propose classifications on which specific activities are sustainable or not.