Background
Content creators and small business owners struggle to successfully scale their business.
What is it?
Balance is an AI -driven, financial services & business analytics mobile app that is targeted towards Generation Z "hustlers" including content creators, small business owners, and freelancers. It provides a seamless, all-in-one mobile application that allows users to view and manage cash flow, set business strategy goals, and track growth over time using AI generated business insights.
My role
As the sole UX and product designer, I translated my client's visions of Balance into a seamless, user friendly mobile app from the ground up.
Research
User interviews, market research and testing for MVP.
Competitor Audit
Along with user interviews completed by my client prior to my on boarding, I conducted additional market research with a goal of understanding the problem domain, current solutions, and additional user needs. Strengths included clean, modern UI — Weaknesses were that action items were not clearly highlighted and didn't create a personalized journey for the user.
Background
Over 25% of businesses are conducted online. As of 2021, there were over 200 million e-commerce shoppers.
70.4 million freelancers in 2022, projected growth of 73.3 million by the end of 2023. Accounts for over 36% of the U.S. workforce.
There are 50 million content creators in the U.S. alone (Across multiple social media platforms).
Key Insights
53% of small businesses report majority of sales online.
The biggest pain point of small business owners is struggling to track cash flow & expenses.
They need a solution that streamlines multiple social media channels and its engagement / cash flow metrics.
Establishing Goals
Tracking cash flow, organizing business tasks, and providing AI-generated growth insights.
Objectives
We established three main goals for the app to resolve pain points uncovered from the research phase. Our findings emphasized the importance of organization and seamless tracking when managing and growing a business.
Ideation Pt. 1
I created user personas based on research & started the brainstorming process.
Meet Kyle
Kyle's biggest pain point is that revenue slips through the cracks due to poor expense tracking. He juggles brand deals, ad spend, filming content, and struggles to keep track of his performance across multiple social media platforms on a consistent basis.
How might Kyle feel supported running his content creation business so that he can maintain a sustainable career while driving growth?
Then, I collaborated with my client to begin diverging on ideas & sorting features by prioritization.
Ideation Pt. 2
Main Features
Dashboard of Business Operations. Important information in a easily accessible dashboard view.
Track Revenue Sources, Expenses & Budgeting Targets. Use graphs and data visualizations to effectively filter data.
Business Engagement Tracking. View engagement across multiple platforms in a streamlined view-- have a workspace to track upcoming events and tasks.
To visualize user actions, I created a storyboard to share with my client.
Meet Kyle
Kyle's biggest pain point is that revenue slips through the cracks due to poor expense tracking. He juggles brand deals, ad spend, filming content, and struggles to keep track of his performance across multiple social media platforms on a consistent basis.
Wireframes
I crafted several rounds of wireframes and conducted initial usability testing to validate key user journeys.
Trade Offs
A key trade off was designing a simple, skimmable dashboard that would create a more user-friendly solution versus a data-heavy dashboard that displayed important numbers & information. I balanced both by creating accessible expandable and collapsible cards to contain this content.
Testing & Validation
I conducted qualitative usability testing to collect initial user insights and sentiment.
Due to time and budget constraints, I conducted a small-scaled usability testing with 5 users of our target audience, recruited from my LinkedIn network. Key areas to test included ease of use in accessing information on the dashboard, navigating to pages, and user sentiment on the flow.
Feedback & Iteration
In the version tested, the dashboard included just daily cash flow and engagement data as research showed this was the most important aspect of managing a business. Through testing, we found that users preferred to see all aggregated data on the dashboard for high-level overviews of their business including budgeting, business insights, and upcoming events.
After iterating on the wireframes, I moved onto the branding & high-fidelity design process.
Final Product
Balance AI, a mobile app that empowers users of online businesses models through AI-driven operations tools.
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