Moolah: Personal Finance App for Young Women

Hayley Gregor

Industrial Design, 2023

Moolah is an innovative finance learning app designed to help young women learn the basics of
personal financial management. The app guides users through a budgeting process where they
can enter their dream job, salary, living situation, and financial goals, and learn about saving,
investing, and emergency planning. It also prompts users to proactively make budgets based on
how their job, salary, and goals may change, allowing them to visualize their financial growth up
to retirement.

By setting both long-term and short-term goals, users can see the outcome of
their savings plans, with short-term goals achieved through optimizing savings and long-term
goals through investing. The app also offers exploration into what others are planning for,
inspiring users to make financial goals they are excited about. This app aligns with the theme of
education and learning, empowering young women to take control of their finances and develop
critical financial management skills for a successful financial future.

Hayley Gregor project image 2 — The goal for the UI of Moolah was to feel friendly, calm, and approachable while looking advanced to inspire confidence. One user had expressed to me that they wouldn’t be happy to use a financial tool that looked ‘like it was made for their dad’, which aligned with what I had found in secondary research as well. The glass-morphic visual trend won in user testing.

Hayley Gregor project image 3 — Users can enter their dream job, salary, living situation, and financial goals, and the app guides them through a budgeting process to learn about saving, investing, and planning for emergencies. The app helps users create both short-term and long-term goals and offers inspiration from other users' plans. It also provides a dynamic to-do list to remind users to check on their budgets as they progress in life.

Four college seniors were interviewed: two business students, two biology students.The group interview lasted almost two hours. Since no girls were interested in talking to me about money for this long, I tricked these ones into thinking that they were sitting down for a group discussion about ‘personal wellness’, a topic they have a lot of interest in.

Hayley Gregor project image 5 — The group did two collaging sessions with loose words and pictures, one was about their current feelings about this finance discussion and the second was about how they would like to feel in the near future about personal finances. I recorded their emotions and thoughts

A Strategic Scenario Planning exercise was conducted that was structured to flesh out the limits, obstacles, and risks that the participants were experiencing or expected to experience. It also functioned as co-design since the participants were designing strategies for success.

Hayley Gregor is a senior Industrial Design major at The Ohio State University with a personal
emphasis on UX/UI. She has a diverse background in product development and design
research, and enjoys solving complex problems using design. On campus, she is involved in her
sorority, Alpha Xi Delta, and served as VP of the Purchasing and Supply Chain Management
Organization. She will be starting her career this summer as a UX design analyst at JP Morgan
in New York City. In her free time, she enjoys fitness, fashion, and finding the perfect croissant.

View Hayley’s other project at here!

Filters: 2023, Undergraduate Studies, Industrial Design, Undergraduate Capstone Project