Product: Athena
Country: USA
athena
Athena is a cross-platform app that allows people to manage their
finances, create budgets and saving plans and also offers integration
with bank accounts, credit cards or online payment services.
User Experience
User Interface
Product Design
CHALLENGE
I was asked to take on the role of UX/UI Designer for Athena. A cross-platform product (desktop, mobile & tablet) that allows
users to manage their finances, offers integration with banks & online payment systems and enables people to easily create
budgets & saving goals.
RESEARCH
After reading the brief and project requirements I started with thorough research on the subject matter. I looked up articles on
the best budget and financial monitoring apps and services on the market and begun to use and analyse them daily. During this
period, I also started to make notes and observations about their functionalities, specifications, user flows and content structures.
With the help of my notes I prepared specific set of questions and conducted couple of interviews that allowed me to gather
more information from the Athena’s potential users about their preferences and needs. After interviews, I established key
audiences for the product and also wrote down sample personas from each category. Additionally, I prepared 4 different
scenarios (situations) for the app’s potential users, to further understand their behaviour and needs and to confirm that the
project’s main goals will be fully accomplished.
sketching
Armed with a robust data summary and results from the research phase, I prepared Athena’s sitemap and drew sketches for
the app screens. As a first test of my concept I used sketches to create low-fidelity prototype. I scanned rough drawings of the
essential screens and implemented them into InVision for a first brief test. It helped me with polishing navigation flaws and some
content structure details. I also changed bottom menu a bit, to make app easier and quicker to use.
wireframing
Based on the sketching phase, I prepared wireframes for each of the app’s screens. Together with UI design, wireframing is
usually my favorite part of the project as I enjoy working with clean vector design elements and I am fond of the synergy between
Photoshop and InVision. Detailed wireframes enabled me to create useful prototype, which is a very effective tool for testing and
for gathering valuable feedback from the user’s.
solution
Athena’s UI is designed using fresh and distinctive colours combined with plenty of white space to achieve visual attractivity
while keeping the interface simple and clean. As the most effective navigation users preferred (according to testing) the bottom
tab menu and plenty of sideways scrolling through the app, which is especially friendly on mobile & tablet platform.
Athena allows users to create their account and link it with banks or payment services within seconds. Thanks to the clean UI,
management of the finances, budgets and saving goals is easy for any user. Visual graphs allow the user to track income and
spending, while monitoring habits and financial behaviour, thus helping users to have effective oversight of their finances, which
is the key goal of the project.
PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS
Unique budget & finance monitoring app, Athena, combines the most effective tools for financial & budget planning and
management. While some competitor’s projects focus only on some parts of the financial activities of the users, our product
provides the most effective way how to keep user’s financial credit healthy, lets them to act within their budgets and also enables
them to easily achieve their dreams with our amazing steps saving goals system.
9
4
2
For research purposes, I used
9 different services and apps
daily to get the best experience
and ideas how to approach my
own solution.
Users can see their financial
data easily thanks to 4 various
visual graphs.
Two-level testing with low and
medium fidelity prototypes
helped me to polish navigation
structure and achieve better
overall results.