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MoneyManager - GR1

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Team members: Stephanie Chang, Qian Long, Isabella Lubin

User Analysis

We have two main sources of user populations: college students and their parents.

College Students

Characteristics:
  • 18-23 years old
  • evenly male and female
  • proficient with technology
  • diverse ethnic backgrounds and origins (but basic proficiency with English)
  • wide variation of income level and spending capacities

Luke is a freshman at college.  His parents pay for his tuition and housing and provide him with $300 a month for food and other necessities.  Luke wants to keep track of his spending so he always has enough money for food and textbooks and knows if he has any extra money for recreational activities.

Parents

Characteristics:
  • 40-60 years old
  • evenly male and female
  • very basic experience with smartphones
  • diverse ethnic backgrounds and origins (but basic proficiency with English)
  • wide variation of income level

Vader is Luke's 42 year old father.  He wants to keep track of his son's spending so he knows where his hard-earned money is going, and if his son asks him for more money he wants to make sure that his son has been responsible with what he's already been given.

Task Analysis

1. Register and log in (Luke and Vader)

  • Create username/password (first time app users)
  • Input username/password (repeat users)

This task is the entry point to the app, used to create an account for the user so that he can modify personal data. The user is assumed to have an email address that will be used for the username, and the user will generate his own password for this account.

This task can be performed anywhere as long as the user has a mobile phone that is connected to the Internet. The registration task is only performed once, but once the user has created an account, he can log in anytime afterwards or simply remain logged in, so overall, this task will be performed very infrequently.

This task will be learned by trying it as it will be consistent with other login and registration interfaces. The user might input the wrong username and/or password, but the interface will give immediate feedback so that the user can try again. Only the user is involved in this task.

2. Create and modify budgets (Luke)

  • Create categories (groceries, clothing, etc.)
  • Input budget
  • Input income
  • Input expenses
  • Input recurring expenses (rent, Internet, phone, etc.)

The purpose of this task is for the user to create and input his budget and expenses. The user is assumed to know or decide the values of his budget, income, and expenses, and which categories his expenses belong to. The user can create customized categories to reflect his spending trends.

This task can be performed anywhere with a smartphone, but will probably be performed most often at stores right after a purchase is made. This task will most likely be performed at least once a day. This task might be constrained by time, especially if the user is inputting on the go.

This task is learned by trying it because there will be a very intuitive, easy to use interface for the user to input information.

This task is reasonably prone to user error because the user might be constrained by time or distractions when he is entering values for his expenses and budget. Because the user is entering values on a mobile phone, he might additionally mistype a value that can later affect his spending decisions. To account for this, there will be immediate feedback after a user has saved an input so that the user can perform a sanity check to see if he made any gross errors.

3. Ask a question (Pichu/Pikachu/Raichu)

  • Input email address and question about a particular student story
  • Preview question
  • CAPTCHA and submit question to the MIT student

Prefrosh and prospective students want to be able to communicate with current MIT students about their actual experiences. They will be able to do so by filling out a form linked to each story.  

The preview feature before final submission will allow the user to proofread for errors. On submission, an email containing the question will be sent to both the questioner and the author of the post.

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