FinTech Product Design
Reimagining the Money Experience for International Students
Duration
6 weeks
Oct 2024 - Dec 2024
My Role
Product Designer, Design Lead
Team
Gloria Yang (me), Roshini Ganesh, Aswathi Thilak, Youlu Xu
A digital solution that supports international students in navigating everyday transactions and long-term financial planning.
Designed to bridge the gap between financial literacy and unfamiliar banking systems, it streamlines money management, simplifies everyday transactions, and builds confidence in navigating complex financial environments through an inclusive, end-to-end experience.
Many international students face significant challenges in managing their personal finances. Limited financial literacy, unfamiliar banking systems, and the complexities of living abroad often lead to stress, confusion, and uncertainty about their financial future.
How can you design a tool that helps users create and maintain a personalized budget?
A simple, guided tool for budgeting and financial literacy that empowering international students in the U.S. to build sustainable finance habits.
Let’s take a closer look at how we arrived at this solution by walking through our two-month design thinking process.
Exploring How International Students Navigate Their Finances
As a team made up mostly of international students, we had personally experienced the stress of managing money in a new country. From opening bank accounts to building credit, many of us had faced the same confusion and uncertainty that international students encounter every day. That inspired us to focus on understanding the specific needs and pain points of this overlooked group.
This led us to ask ourselves: How do international students in the U.S. manage their finances and where do they struggle most?
Interviewed 18 students from diverse majors and backgrounds
Mapped their daily routines and pain points with empathy maps, user journey maps, and affinity diagrams
Synthesized themes to reveal common frustrations and unmet needs
From interviews and mapping exercises, we identified recurring patterns:
Students felt lost when starting their financial journey
Confusion around credit cards and building credit
Preference for simple, tailored guidance over generic tutorials
Strong need for automated expense tracking
How might we support international students in adapting to the U.S. financial system and developing sustainable personal finance habits for long-term stability?
International students often face chaotic personal finance management when studying in the United States. Many struggle to maintain a budget, feel unfamiliar with the U.S. financial system, and have limited awareness of available financial options. These challenges not only create day-to-day stress but also make it difficult to build long-term financial stability.
To move from insights to design direction, we:
Brainstormed features with the team based on research themes
Mapped ideas by feasibility and user value
Prioritized MVP features to focus on the most essential first-release functionality
Defined 5 core features: Onboarding, Home Dashboard, Transactions, Budgeting & Goal Setting, Education
This feature set became the foundation of our mid-fidelity prototype and testing strategy.
Validating Early Designs with Real Users
To evaluate our five core features, we built a interactive low-fi prototype and conducted moderated usability testing with four international students who had recently moved to the U.S. Sessions were held both remotely and in person, guiding participants through five core tasks to assess clarity, navigation, and task completion.
This helped us quickly identify usability issues, validate assumptions, and gather actionable feedback to inform our next design iterations.
Below are key challenges uncovered and the opportunities we identified:
Challenge #1: How can onboarding feel faster and more purposeful?
Insight:
Users felt the onboarding had too many steps and didn’t see the need to upload a profile photo early on, causing friction and slowing engagement.
Design Opportunity:
We simplified the flow by removing non-essential steps like photo upload and grouping questions to make it more logically.
Challenge #2: How do we help users get a clear financial overview without overwhelming them?
Insight:
Users want a quick snapshot of their net worth, but too many numbers and navigation paths make the dashboard feel cluttered and stressful.
Design Opportunity:
We simplified the layout by prioritizing key financial highlights and removing redundant navigation to help users focus on what matters most at a glance.
Challenge #3: How can we make budget setup more intuitive and less stressful for new users?
Insight:
Users found the budgeting flow overwhelming. Setting a total amount upfront without later reference felt disconnected, and the circular graphic didn’t offer helpful guidance, especially for newcomers unfamiliar with local living costs.
Design Opportunity:
We improved clarity by referencing the total budget throughout, replacing the circular graphic with clearer visuals, and introducing city-based budget templates to support users with localized starting points.
Challenge #4: How can we make the combine transaction feature easier to find and use for users?
Insight:
Users didn’t notice the combine option and found the process of adding up transactions repetitive. The save button was also hard to spot, which caused confusion during completion.
Design Opportunity:
We added tutorials to surface hidden features, removed redundant steps in the flow, and gave the save button stronger visual emphasis to support smoother task completion.
Challenge #5: How can we deliver educational content without overwhelming users?
Insight:
Users preferred pop-up tips over expandable content and found small icon-based hints ineffective. Dense, text-heavy explanations led to frustration and disengagement.
Design Opportunity:
We focused on clear, digestible learning by using pop-up tips, replacing icons with more informative formats, and presenting content through concise text and infographics with ample white space.
Translating Insights into a Financial Platform for International Students
Day 1 with UniFi: A Guided Path into Financial Clarity
Stay on Track with UniFi: From 1st Budget to Daily Check-ins
What's the Future Potential Business Opportunities?
Expand to Other Migrant Groups
to serve new immigrants who face similar struggles and expands market
University Collaborations
to expand reach and credibility of the product for international students
FinTech Integrations
to streamline user onboarding and transaction experience to directly link with their cards and accounts
Subscription Model
to provide premium features like personalized financial coaching, cross-boarder financial planning, etc.
UniFi not only addresses a critical gap for international students but also holds potential as a scalable business through university partnerships, fintech integrations, premium features, and expansion to wider migrant groups.