My role:
UX designer
Timeline
Feb 2023 - present
Team
1 UX designer
2 Content writers
3 PMs,
3 Engineer teams (iOS, web, Android)
1 UX researcher
Overview:
Spending Summary is an existing tool launched three years ago. Over the time, we observed there are several areas of improvement, and I have been assigned to be the only designer.
The mission of Spending Summary is to provide a simple and integrated experience to help customers understand, track, and plan their spending. Several new features have been added to Spending Summary to enhance the user experience. These include a new data visualization, spending breakdown by merchants, and the ability to exclude and recategorize transactions.
Overall satisfaction
Monthly active users
(as of Jan 2024)
Retention
What is Spending Summary?
Spending Summary is a tool that showcases users an aggregate view of their total spending across all Chase checking accounts, credit cards, and externally linked accounts. The goal of the tool is to help customers track and better manage their spending, Users can view their spending information by breaking it down into categories, merchants, and spending amounts. The tool also allows a comparison of users’ spending versus their income and eventually helps them spend within their means.
Spending Summary & Net Activity
In previous version, the Spending Summary was part of the Net Activity experience, which shows the customers their cash flow for the month to date. The tool does this by subtracting the users’ spending from their income. Users are able to learn if they spent more than their current income.
However, users expressed the concern that the data visualization is hard to understand, and the experience is too limited, which does not help users fully understand their spending.
Problem statement
Based on user research, we identified 3 UX problems related to Complexity, Data inaccuracy, and Limited features across the tool—
Complexity
Customers struggle to understand the terminologies, making it difficult for them to interpret the chart. Users without direct deposit from Chase do not find the chart useful.
Data inaccuracy
The tool often times categorizes transactions incorrectly. Users find it frustrating when things are not labeled correctly and there is no way to adjust them.
Limited features
Customers demand more features. Users expressed the need for non-recurring, top spent and frequently visited merchant information that are not offered.
5
2 years ago
It would be good to work in non-recurring but frequent expenses like coffee at Starbucks every morning. I don’t know if this functionality is in the app and I would love to see it as a part of this experience.
3
2 years ago
I need to change the category of some transactions.
5
2 years ago
It's almost useful, except somehow it's not recognizing or even letting me manually add my largest expense, my mortgage payment, to the budget. As they say "you had one job..."
2
2 years ago
It is confusing at first sight, but it makes more sense after having the context. Don’t actually know what it means when I first looked at it. My first impression was it that the money spent from the budgeting category?
4
2 years ago
The tool regularly categorizes transactions incorrectly. It is useless and difficult to use this tool correctly because things just aren’t labeled correctly and there’s no way to correct them.
1
2 years ago
Your tool doesn’t work. I keep trying to reclassify transactions but nothing happens and it’s really hard to use when it’s completely inaccurate. It would be wonderful, if it would work properly.
Understanding our users
In contrast to Chase Budget, the power users for Spending Summary are reactive users. They are less likely to spend time setting u a budget, or actively monitor their spending. Instead, they prefer a simpler, automated experience without any effort.
Only looks for reassurance that their financial standing is good.
Likely heavily dependent on things like autopay features.
“Make it as easy as possible.”
Log onto the Chase app occasionally to check balances and transactions.
Tends to spend more than they actually save.
Looking for ways to spend less.
Competitive audit
Next, to better understand how other budgeting tools work, we conducted a competitive audit of a few competitors’ app. This helped us analyze strengths and pain points for each of the budgeting features, and identify opportunities and areas for improvements.
Core task & key opportunities
As a team, we listed out all the features provided by current Spending Summary, and identified opportunities based on user feedback.
Perceived emotions
We evaluated user emotions by analyzing the user journey map and determined the desired takeaway from the enhanced experience.
Value vs complexity
We collaborated with the engineering and product teams to assess the effort and customer value of each feature, defining our MVP experience.
Our impact has been positive. We are seeing an increase in engagement, retention, and customer satisfaction. —
OSAT score
78% increase
48%
27%
Monthly active users
2x increase
3.2M (as of Jan 2024)
1.6M
Retention
23% increase
27%
22%
JPMorgan Chase & Co. - Empowered Award (Q4 2023)
FinTech Breakthrough Awards - Best Personal Finance Product (2023)
Led the entire design cycle, created mobile & web designs, and ensure consistency throughout the entire user experience.
Collaborated with cross-functional teams across all stages, from early research, ideation, and design, to execution and delivery.
Actively involved in desk checks and VQAs with the development team to ensure the product aligns with the design.
Bill Forecast
Web redesign
Visual uplift
Dark mode
More...