Built Budgets

My Role

Lead Product Designer

UIUX Designer

Task

Design a user-friendly budgeting and financial planning tool for small business owners, enabling them to track income, expenses, set budgets, monitor cash flow, and gain insights into profits and losses, all through intuitive dashboards and visual reports.

Responsibilities

Wire framing

Visual Design

User Interface Design

User Experience Design

Micro interactions Design

High Fidelity Prototyping

Interaction Design

Tools

Project Duration

2 Weeks

PROBLEM STATEMENT

Small business owners often struggle to manage budgets and track financial performance due to a lack of intuitive tools, limited visibility into income and expenses, and difficulty analyzing profits and losses, which leads to inefficient financial planning and decision-making.

Solutions

Provide an intuitive dashboard to track budgets, income, and expenses in real time.
Enable visualizations for profits, losses, and spending trends to support financial decision-making.
Offer notifications and alerts for budget limits or unusual transactions.
Simplify budget creation and adjustment with guided workflows.
Include export and reporting features for easy record-keeping and analysis.

Design Process

Test

Observe
Measure
Refine
Improve

I began with a User centered approach involving a mixture of the traditional method and the double diamond approach

Empathize

User Research

Survey

Define

Goals

Wants

Needs

Ideate

Brainstorm
Create
Visualize
Refine

Prototype

Design
Test
Iterate
Validate

Process

1. Research & Discovery
- Conduct stakeholder interviews with GIZ project managers and target users.
- Define user needs, goals, and pain points.
- Develop user personas and user journey maps.
- Identify core features based on GIZ program objectives (e.g., skills training, jobs, funding, mentorship).

2. Information Architecture & UX Design
- Create the sitemap and define navigation flow.
- Develop wireframes for key screens (Home, Courses, Mentorship, Opportunities, Profile, etc.).
- Ensure accessibility and usability for youth with varying digital literacy levels.

3. Visual Design
- Define brand color scheme, typeface, and iconography consistent with GIZ’s branding guidelines.
- Design high-fidelity UI mockups and prototypes for mobile and web platforms.
- Prepare a design system for consistency and scalability.

4. Prototyping & Testing
- Build a clickable prototype using Figma.
- Conduct internal usability testing with 5–10 target users.
- Collect feedback, identify usability issues, and refine the design.

Launch & Handoff
- Prepare final documentation (Design System + User Flow + Prototype Links).
- Conduct final review with GIZ stakeholders.
- Handoff final deliverables for development and deployment.

EMPATHY MAP

I use an empathy map to understand church members’ and admins’ needs, helping me design a solution that improves worship, communication, and management.

THINKS

SAYS

DOES

FEELS

How can I track my expenses efficiently?

Where is most of my money going?

Am I staying within my budget?

Tracks expenses manually

Checks multiple sources for income and spending

Tries to analyze profits and losses regularly

I need an easy way to see my profits and losses.

I wish I could quickly adjust my budgets.

Keeping track of all my expenses is hard.

Overwhelmed by financial management

Anxious about cash flow

Motivated to improve business finances

PAIN POINTS

Manual Tracking: Users spend too much time entering and reconciling expenses manually.

Lack of Clarity: Difficulty understanding where money is going and which areas are over or under budget.

Limited Insights: Users struggle to get actionable insights on profits, losses, and cash flow to make informed decisions.

USER PERSONAS

Ama Mensah – Small Business Owner

Age: 34
Occupation: Owner of a small retail shop in a rural area
Goals: Track daily expenses, manage cash flow, and make informed financial decisions
Frustrations: Manual bookkeeping, unclear budget insights, limited time to analyze finances

Ruth Osei – Micro-Entrepreneur

Age: 41
Occupation: Owner of a small food business
Goals: Keep track of income and expenses, plan for future growth, ensure profitability
Frustrations: Inconsistent record-keeping, inability to quickly generate reports, confusion over creditor and debtor balances