Design Thinking for Smarter Spending

Suscrito —

As users increasingly subscribe to multiple apps and services, many struggle to keep track of their spending and the subscriptions they no longer use. This inspired the creation of Suscrito, an app designed to help users manage their subscriptions, identify unnecessary payments, and become more financially aware. My role involved collaborating with my team to implement a Design Thinking Process that led to a product addressing this critical market gap, empowering users to make informed financial decisions and save money.

Growth of digital subscriptions

In 2024, the subscription economy continues to grow, with Netflix adding 9.3 million new paid streaming subscriptions in the first quarter alone, a significant increase from previous years. However, many consumers are unaware of their total subscription costs, with 89% underestimating their monthly expenses, often leading to forgotten payments for unused services. This highlights a growing acceptance of subscription models among users, who must navigate the complexities of managing multiple services.

Goals

Develop an app that helps users become aware of their subscriptions and their associated costs

01. Increase Subscription Awareness

Create a feature that enables users to easily identify and track their monthly subscription spending, providing insights into their overall budget

02. Create a Expense Tracking Tool

03. Make a User-Friendly app

Thanks to the Design Thinking process, ensure that the app is easy to navigatez, intuitive, and visually appealing to enhance user engagement and satisfaction

Mapping our user ecosystem

The initial phase of our research focused on empathizing with users by thoroughly understanding their needs and the environment in which we were operating. We employed various methods to identify gaps in existing applications and understand what users felt was missing. By exploring user feedback and analyzing competitor features, we aimed to pinpoint essential improvements that would enhance user experiences and effectively address lacking needs in the market.

Research

01. Desk Research

We identified apps related to finance, earnings, and digital user engagement, analyzing their functionalities and market trends to gain insights into current features and potential gaps.

02. Netnography

We gathered user feedback on app experiences, noting useful category filters for organization. Users also pointed out missing payment alerts and requested having the option of a Spanish version.

03. Benchmark

We studied the scope we needed to cover, highlighting popular features as well as gaps in existing offerings. This gave us clear starting points and insights on essential features to include that other apps lacked.

04. Surveys

We conducted surveys to review platform usage data, identifying behavioral patterns and points of abandonment. This helped us pinpoint specific steps in the process that required improvement, allowing us to focus our efforts effectively.

Setting up a user-centered approach to generate innovative ideas for solving their management challenges.

01. Empathy map

By capturing what users say, think, do, and feel, we gained a deeper understanding of their perspectives on the problems encountered.

02. User personas

We created user personas that would use our app, including their behavior patterns, goals, skills, attitudes, and problems.

03. Customer journey

We mapped the potential customer journey to identify key touchpoints and pain points as well as the moments of truth (MOT).

04. Pains / needs

Building on earlier steps, we identified the pains to address, the user needs to fulfill, and the benefits they would receive.

Ideating from the insights

Step 1

Thanks to our prior research, we identified essential features for our app. Key functionalities include an online subscription management system, user-selected tags for subscription classification, notifications before the end of free trials, a total costs dashboard with filters, additional icons, and shared cost information. These elements aim to enhance user experience and simplify subscription management.

In-out study

Step 2

We conducted a card sorting exercise to enumerate ideas and group related features. This helped us organize functionalities across different screens, ensuring a logical flow and enhancing user navigation. By categorizing features effectively, we aimed to improve user experience and streamline the app's design.

Card sorting

Step 3

Based on the card sorting results, we defined a clear information architecture for the app. This structure organized content and features logically, facilitating easy navigation for users. By enhancing usability and streamlining the user experience, we ensured that users can quickly find important information while preparing the app for future updates.

Information structure

Step 4

Thanks to the defined information structure, we could clearly outline the content for each app screen. This clarity helped us identify essential features for an intuitive user experience. We then used the crazy 8s brainstorming technique to rapidly generate diverse ideas for screen layouts, promoting creativity while staying aligned with our structure.

Crazy 8s

Creating Suscrito

We developed wireframes from our previous ideas, created user flows, and built a prototype for an app that allows users to track their online platform payments and organize them into personalized categories. This entire prototype was crafted in Figma, establishing a foundation for a design system that encompasses all UI elements used in the app. Additionally, we began documenting this design system on Zeroheight to ensure a consistent and cohesive user experience while enabling future enhancements.