Sage: An Inclusive Financial Literacy App

Existing apps like Zogo don’t address the unique financial needs of women and LGBTQ people. My app, Sage, offers inclusive learning, resources and support to empower users through financial education.

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Background

I decided to take the route of a no-code project in Figma that focuses on inclusive financial education, targeting LGBTQ+ individuals and women.

I chose “Sage” as the app name since it represents wisdom, which in this case, users will be gaining financial wisdom in their literacy journey.

Since the timespan for this hackathon was only 1 week, I focused more on the UI/visual aspects of this app rather than the user research.

Problem

Women and queer people often lack financial knowledge, or access to obtaining it. They both have unique financial challenges that may be hard to find resources for.

Goal

I aimed to design a financial education app by:

  • focusing on visual design based on the problem statement, since the hackathon timeline leaves little room for the user research that would typically go into a project
  • basing my app around successful educational apps such as Duolingo and Zogo
  • using enticing colors/branding choices
  • focusing on ensuring the app delivered on inclusivity and offering unique features that sets it apart
  • creating accessibility, ensuring the app is usable by a diverse audience

Competitor Analysis

I conducted competitor analysis of other educational apps like Duolingo, Your Juno, and Zogo.

These organizations:

  • use bold colors
  • gamified elements to encourage learning
  • social elements like leaderboards, achievements, and forums
  • personalized learning paths
  • clear and structured information hierarchy

I wanted to incorporate these insights into the Sage app design to ensure that my app followed the structure of other successful apps, while thinking of ways to make mine stand out.

Pain Points/Research

Women (RAND, Stanford, National Library of Medicine):

  • Often work part-time or take caregiving breaks.
  • Report lower financial literacy confidence and frequently answer "I don’t know" to finance questions.
  • Higher risk of financial challenges due to longer life spans, shorter careers, lower earnings, and smaller pensions.
  • Unmarried, especially divorced, women near retirement have less wealth than married couples or single men, partly due to reduced labor force participation.

LGBTQ+ Individuals (Human Rights Campaign Foundation, LGBTQ Economics):

  • 30% of LGBTQ+ adults report discrimination in financial services.
  • Nearly half (48.15%) identify as financially unwell.
  • Many lose financial support from family after coming out.
  • 40% of LGBTQ+ parents incur out-of-pocket legal costs for family formation.
  • 82% who received gender-affirming care faced out-of-pocket expenses.
  • LGBTQ+ individuals are more likely to feel negative about their finances.

Based on this research, I tried to make the units and lessons in my app relevant to these unique challenges that the users might face. For example, topics like medical transitioning, maternity leave, legal protections, family planning, retirement, and employment security, could be topics that would be extremely valuable to people who identify as LGBTQ+ or women.

Development

With the pain points, competitors, and user flow in mind, I developed two key user stories to guide my design decisions:

1) As a queer college student, I want to learn more about how to become independent, manage my finances and become a business owner.

2) As a woman in STEM, I want to better my financial knowledge and learn how things like maternity leave and home ownership work.

Hi-Fidelity Prototype: I created a high-fidelity prototype using Figma. Normally, I would have created a lo-fi wireframe first, but given the timeframe of this hackathon, I jumped right into designing the app’s hi-fi prototype. I included features such as:

  • 4 Pillars: Dashboard, Pathways, Community, and Account
  • Referral Bonus: Earn leaves by referring others
  • Reward Elements: From learning and using the app, user will receive “leaves”, which can then be used to redeem for gift cards or charity donations
  • Upcoming Events: Encourages users to attend events hosted by industry professionals with similar identities
  • 1-on-1 Mentorships: Connect with mentors who can help user excel in any specific area of their choosing
  • Gamified Learning: To make financial literacy compelling and digestible for users of all ages and backgrounds to consume and enjoy
  • Community Building: Dedicated forums for users to interact with others going through similar situations, or to ask any relevant questions
  • Interactive Profile: Includes elements like recent activity, savings goals, achievements, and more to encourage showcasing personality and motivation to use the app
  • To-Dos: On the dashboard, so users can easily see what they can do ASAP to earn leaves
  • Continue Learning: Picks up on the most recent lesson user left off
  • End of Unit Tests: Users can test their knowledge to ensure they understand concepts presented
  • Over 15 Units: 15 topics and hundreds of lessons for users to explore (relevant to struggles that LGBTQ individuals and women face), while there is also an option to recommend units/topics to be added

Business Aspects

Revenue Model:

Premium Membership

  • $4.99/month
  • or $47.90/year (save 20%)
  • 1 on 1 mentorship is the big ticket!

Sponsorships

  • Short ad when finishing a lesson
  • Ad free when purchasing a Premium membership

Marketing:

Social Media

  • Influencer collaborations
  • Ads across platforms
  • Podcasters

Publication features

  • e.g. Forbes, finance news outlets

Workshops

  • Free initial workshops (similar to SheCodes) for people to try out app and learn
  • Can have a verified mentor lead workshop

Feasibility:

  • User testing
  • UX researcher
  • Product designer
  • Software engineer (full stack)
  • Figma/Adobe XD/Sketch
  • Notion (documentation/note taking)
  • Asana (project management)
  • Swift/Java/Kotlin
  • Firebase (metric tracking)

Phased Roadmap:

  • Research & Content Development: Create inclusive financial lessons and resources.
  • Finalize Branding: Design logo, visuals, and establish app identity.
  • Prototype Finalization: Refine UX/UI and functionality.
  • Developer Handoff: Provide finalized designs for buildout.
  • Beta Testing: Collect user feedback and optimize the app.
  • Strategic Marketing: Launch campaigns and build community engagement.
  • Measure & Scale: Track key metrics to improve and expand.

Conclusion

I’m very proud of how this app prototype turned out, especially given such a short time frame to work on it. I think this is one of my best designs yet, and it was something I’m very passionate about, which made me even more dedicated to the project.

Challenges I Encountered Originally, I wasn’t sure how to design the gamified lessons, which is one of the most important features of the app. I tried to mimic Duolingo’s layout with the “stepping stone” lessons, however, I liked the simplicity of Your Juno’s design more, and decided to take a more simple route with the design.

I think the prototyping also became challenging, since there were a lot of screens and buttons to work with. I messed up a few times and didn’t realize, then had to spend time going back and fixing the prototype.

Key Takeaways Keeping the UI simple, even if you think something flashy would be cool, is usually the better option, especially in an educational app! Doing research for this project also showed me how we can try to improve everything and make it more accessible to people in different situations. Even if you think something is generally accessible, chances are, there are always going to be certain people who are excluded, so we should aim to eliminate those chances the best we can.

Anticipated Results Since this app is not live, here are some results I’d kept in mind and had hoped to see while designing this project:

  • Easier access to financial knowledge/resources
  • Financial empowerment for women and LGBTQ+ people
  • Increased financial confidence in unique situations not typically faced by the average person
  • Financial independence, including wealth building and asset ownership
  • Support system of similar identifying individuals who understand user’s struggle

What Would I Do Different? In the future, I would love to expand on the research, dive into user testing and eventually, make the app live. I would also like to take time to make a lo-fi wireframe. Even though I worked on this project alone, if I were working with teammates, a lo-fi wireframe would be extremely helpful to anyone else on my team.

Notes:

  • “Debt Management” is the prototyped lesson
  • “Ainsley F.” is the prototyped mentor
  • “Financial Wins” is the prototyped forum
  • “Gift Cards” is the prototyped reward

Built With

  • figma
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