Incentives
Branding | UX/UI Art Direction: Abby Guido
During our UX/UI-focused branding course, Amanda Andreucci and I designed Incentives, a course on personal finance designed to be easy to navigate, informative, fun, and stress-free. It’s the perfect way for students to learn about savings, budgeting, paying back student loans, financial planning for the future, and so much more. We wanted the course to be accessible for students on the go, so we designed it to be used on both desktop and mobile. Our main goal for the app was to make learning about finances as simple and approachable as possible. To do this, we needed to make the course both flexible and exciting. One way we achieved this goal was by designing our Learning Management System (LMS) in a way that allows users to create their own schedule and timeline of assignments. This allows students to eliminate stress and make the learning experience enjoyable.
Research
Prior to beginning the design process, Amanda and I spent a few weeks conducting a multitude of research. This research, which included focus groups, surveys, interviews with LMS professionals, card sorting, prototyping, user flows, and user journeys, helped us immensely to identify our problem and form the best possible solution. For more details about the research process, check out our in-depth Medium article.
Logo Process
Our main goal for the logo was that we wanted it to be both playful and smart. We went through many ideas in our sketches but ended up making the “c” in incentives into a coin while keeping the rest of the type simple and bold. The most challenging part of the logo process was deciding what style worked best for the coin, and we ended up with a friendly, stylized coin that sets the tone for the rest of the brand. Lastly, we added a fun tagline to further inform the viewer of what Incentives is all about.
Interface
The interface for Incentives was heavily informed by the knowledge we gained from our interviews. We wanted to address many of the problems that currently exist in many LMS. To do this, we made sure that the interface was customizable, easy to navigate, and stress-free. Our dashboard is where the user can see all of their assignments in one place and sort by upcoming, all, or today only. Additionally, we wanted to make sure users could manage the course load on their own time. We included the ability to move around assignments on the days students plan to complete them, limiting unnecessary stress while keeping the user organized.
Desktop vs. Mobile
Before designing, we thought about whether or not Incentives should be available on both desktop and mobile. We thought about the existing problems with LMS, and one of the biggest we’ve both experienced first hand is that the mobile versions are not very user-friendly. They’re usually clunky, confusing, and have more limitations than desktop versions. So, we decided to fix these issues when it came to Incentives. We created a mobile version that allows students to take the course on the go, without losing any of the features of the desktop interface.
The Incentives
One of the key features of Incentives is the “incentives” themselves. We designed a badge system that students receive after completing each week of lessons. Using the responses from our survey, we chose four rewards Temple University students would want to receive most: a free hoodie, free coffee, free pizza. The final badge, registering for classes a day early, is given at the end of the course and serves as a motivator for completing Incentives.
Brand Extension
To complete the brand, we created some additional assets to promote Incentives. We designed an Instagram page that promotes our course and shares educational financial tips through the brand’s simple, friendly look.
