MOBILE DESIGN . PRODUCT DESIGN . RESEARCH
OVERVIEW
529 Readysave mobile app is an app that parents use to save for their child's education. We partner with 21 states to bring tax deductible savings to parents and students all across America. Most states offered matching grant programs which were not accessible through our current 529 mobile app. Our goal was design a brand new mobile app experience where users would be able to sign up for a matching grant program if they choose to do so when enrolling in a 529 plan.
MY TEAM
Solo Product Designer with guidance from the Design Director, Product Manager, 3+ Engineers
MY ROLE
Responsible for research, working closely with internal teams and consumers to craft the end to end design of the mobile experience.
TIMELINE
January 2023 -April 2023
Discovery
How does matching grants work?
Matching grant program is a program that is designed to help lower to middle income families save for their child's higher education. For every contribution that goes into your child's 529 account, the state will match dollar for dollar up to a certain amount. Each state has their own eligibility requirements and time period restrictions on when and how the user could sign up for this program. Some states required users to submit tax documents while others did not.
The Challenge
How do we incorporate this into the current enrollment flow?
The enrollment flow already existed on mobile. Incorporating matching grants program to the current enrollment flow required users to keep the following in mind.
1. Users want to know what they are signing up for?
2. They need to know the eligibility requirements and other terms and conditions.
Redesign
Grouping user flows by user input requirements
We grouped matching grants flow into three categories based how much information the state needs to collect from the user.
Category A: Matching grants that don't require tax documents for approval
The user sees the matching grant information at the end of the enrollment flow. He/She doesn't have to take action since there is no need to upload tax documentation.
Category B: Matching grants that don't require tax documents for approval but user has to enter basic information
The user sees the matching grant information at the beginning of the enrollment flow. He/She only has to enter basic information but doesn't have to upload documentation.
Category C: Matching grants that require tax documents upload for approval
The user sees the matching grant information at the end of the enrollment flow. He/She enters basic information and is required to upload tax documents before enrollment is complete. (Either on A.O's dashboard or this would be a desktop feature only)
MOBILE DESIGN . PRODUCT DESIGN . RESEARCH
OVERVIEW
OVERVIEW
We know that 25% of Account Owners add multiple beneficiaries at enrollment. Current mobile enrollment flow is not designed to do this. Our goal was to design a brand new mobile app experience where users would be able to add additional beneficiaries during account creation.
Redesign
Based on this information we came up with user flows. This way we were able to assess the happy path the user would take to get to the final destination.
Option 1: User enters multiple beneficiary information each step of the way.
Here, user will be able to add, contribute and select investment options for his/her beneficiary at each step of the process.
Pros:
Easy to add multiple beneficiaries without having to go through the same flow multiple times
Cons:
The flow for build your own investment screen will have to have an additional screen.
Option 2: User adds their beneficiaries at the beginning but has to go through separate user flows for contribution/investment screens for each beneficiary
Here, user adds beneficiaries at the beginning and goes through a contribution/investment flow for each beneficiary.
Pros:
Easy to add multiple beneficiaries at the beginning of their journey
Cons:
1. Time consuming as the user has to enter information about multiple beneficiaries twice or many times.
2. Will depend on the average number of beneficiaries being added to the account.
3. User has to complete 2 or more additional steps before completing the enrollment flow.
Option 3: User completes enrollment for each beneficiary separately
Here, user adds one beneficiary at a time and completes the journey before adding a new one.
Pros:
1. Focus on one beneficiary at a time.
Cons:
1. Time consuming as the user has to enter information about multiple beneficiaries twice or many times.
2. Not ideal when the user has multiple beneficiaries.
3. User has to complete 3 or more additional steps before completing the enrollment flow.
Option 4: User selects investments one beneficiary at a time
Here, user adds beneficiaries and makes contributions on the same screen but chooses investment options separately (one beneficiary at a time)
Pros:
1. Easy to add multiple beneficiary info.
2. Easy to contribute to multiple beneficiaries.
3. Focus on one beneficiary at a time when selecting investments.
Cons:
1. None that I can think of
Final Option: User completes enrollment for each beneficiary separately
1. User goes through the flow one beneficiary at a time. After review and submit, they can add the second beneficiary.
2. A clear CTA button on the confirmation screen. Clicking this button would put them back into the flow.
3. This also solves for an existing account owner/ app user being able to add beneficiary through mobile/ app down the road.
4. Would be prompted to log into the app to add the second beneficiary.
Challenges
The tricky part about working on this project was overcoming the day to day hand off challenges between designers and developers. I knew that I wanted to avoid endless back and forth between the design and the development team. Getting feedback from the developers were vital, so by bringing them into the design meetings early on in the process, streamlining my communication efforts, utilizing a design system and providing clarity on design assets and files, I was able to communicate my design intentions and minimize design-developer hand off challenges.