The answer to the question “Why is design important in life?” lies in its importance and usefulness. The fact is that design is a visual source of information that immediately tells the person looking at it some information. And after just a few seconds of looking at it, we learn much more about the object than we did before.
The value of design also lies in the fact that today it is not just about visuals. For example, it is UX design impact creates a comfortable space around users in the form of structured websites, intuitive applications, and the design of various projects. UX design can also help to shape a competent financial life. We will talk about this, as well as its goals, principles, and priority functions of financial UX below.
UX Design Principles and Goals
In the broader concept of “design”, “UX Design” is distinguished as one of the subcategories. UX Design deals directly with the “user experience”. The UX design goals are to make the user experience as comfortable as possible. For example, it is the UX designer who will be responsible for whether the navigation in the application seems logical, as well as whether the placement of all functions is intuitive.
User experience is determined by how easy or difficult it is to interact with the user interface elements created by designers. At the same time, UX designers also take care of the user interface of the program. That’s why people often get confused and don’t see the difference between UX and UI designers. However, while UI is responsible for the look of the user interface, UX designers work on its logic.
The importance of UX design lies in its relevance. After all, according to a survey conducted by Clutch, “…almost everyone (94%) says easy navigation is the most important website feature”. At the same time, 83% also value an attractive website design.
The basic user experience principles include:
- User-centeredness;
- Hierarchy, or how the product gradually reveals its capabilities while teaching you how to use it;
- Accessibility;
- Ease of use;
- The right level of control. That is, you need to allow the user to make mistakes and learn, and not make them feel like they are being forced to do so.
All these principles are relevant for designing a participant’s financial experience. However, here, each person is a financial UX designer, and their project is their financial security and income.
Prioritizing Features for a User-Centric Financial Journey
Creating a user-centered design means firstly thinking about the needs and desires of the target audience. And if the entire interface works well, it means that the designer’s work has worked 100 percent and will bring the most benefit.
It is such a competent feature prioritization UX that focuses on user comfort, a wide range of freely available tools, and a clear organization that can help you improve your assets. For example, Medium demonstrates in its article the flexibility of UX design for personal financial life and for business:
If a user correctly combines the basic principles of UX design and financial literacy, they can create a successful personal financial journey project. At the same time, you should conduct your own analysis of efficiency and effectiveness over time to determine whether the design of such a financial set of functions works. If it does, everything is fine and the design is successful; if it doesn’t, that’s fine, too, but you should think about adjustments.
Affinity Mapping: A Tool for Enhancing Financial UX
Affinity mapping is a very useful tool for financial planning improvement. This is a special map or diagram on which you can attach thematic stickers, inscriptions, and thoughts. Therefore, affinity mapping UX will store all the insights of user experience, including financial behavior.
Building a personalized affinity map will promote affinity between plans, decisions, and results. This will help to better formulate personal needs, find “weaknesses” and conduct correct planning.
You can start building an affinity map correctly in 4 steps, which are outlined in a video on the UXtweak channel. These are:
- Gather the data;
- Write sticky notes;
- Group the data;
- Create headers.
The more notes you have on such an affinity map, the better you can adjust your capital, calculations, and plan your next steps.
Integrating UX Design into Financial Decision-Making
The main effect on improving user financial behavior will come from the gradual UX design integration and principles. For example, one of the aspects of UX, namely competent information processing (the Doherty Threshold is responsible for this), can help improve decision-making enhancement.
Another important factor is proper control and accessibility. This will help you adjust your personal financial experience and change your next steps as needed. You can control the entire process with one question: “Does this thing contribute to my success?” and “How will it affect my financial behavior?”
Conclusion: Shaping a User-Friendly Financial Life
UX design impact on modern life is hard to overestimate. In general, this concept has been logically integrated into all spheres of social life: from apartment renovations to running a business, designing an educational hub, styling an Instagram coffee shop, or laying out a comic book.
Thanks to its basic principles, society can even make its economic situation comfortable. The idea of UX design is to be completely user-centered, attentive and accessible, carefully structured, and properly controlled. However, these same values can also help gain a user-friendly financial experience, establish a relationship with your own budget, and improve your own financial literacy.