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IntiBud App

Budgeting & finance app designed specifically for students

Year:

2025

Timeframe:

3 weeks

Tools:

Figma, Miro

Category:

Generative AI

Overview

An application for international students to manage their finances and budget for easy understanding of new currency and economy.

Aim

The aim of this project is to provide international students with a financial management platform when they move to a new country with a new currency.

Project Info

Role: UX Research & Product Design Duration: 3 Weeks Tools: Figma, Miro

Methodology: Design Thinking

IntiBud is a financial app designed for international students in the UK who struggle with managing money, understanding currency, and tracking expenses. It helps users monitor budgets, savings goals, and exchange rates while providing insights into spending and potential investment opportunities. The app aims to simplify financial management and support smarter financial decisions in a new economic environment.

What's IntiBud?

I conducted 5 user interviews and a focus group interview with the students from different backgrounds to understand what difficulties they face financially when they first arrive in UK.

What users wants to say?

Relies heavily on facial expressions

"Wants personalized saving tips based on currency conversion challenges."

"Struggles most with spontaneous expenses like eating out or impulse purchases."

"Faced an issue when needing to pay both rent and tuition together; had to increase credit card limit."

"I was so confused about the currency, I ended up spending more."

Define stage - POV statements

POV Statement 1

Aarya, an overwhelmed international student, needs a simple, emotional-friendly budgeting app because she often overspends unintentionally, gets stressed managing finances, and urgently wants financial independence abroad.

POV Statement 2

Leo, a tech-savvy spontaneous spender , needs a dynamic app that provides real-time spend alerts because without immediate feedback, he risks overspending impulsively and losing control of his financial health while studying abroad.

Tab 1 of 4: Persona 1

I created three user personas to better understand different perspectives and experiences. The first persona represents someone born deaf, sharing what daily life and communication challenges are like. The second persona is a caregiver or guardian of a Deaf or mute individual, describing their experiences supporting and communicating with them. The third persona represents someone who has temporarily lost hearing or speech due to illness or medical conditions, highlighting the challenges of adapting to sudden communication barriers.

Who are we designing for, and what roles shape their experience?

I created three user personas to better understand different perspectives and experiences.

The first persona represents someone born deaf, sharing what daily life and communication challenges are like.

The second persona is a caregiver or guardian of a Deaf or mute individual, describing their experiences supporting and communicating with them.

The third persona represents someone who has temporarily lost hearing or speech due to illness or medical conditions, highlighting the challenges of adapting to sudden communication barriers.

After conducting user interviews and creating personas, I moved on to defining both user needs and business goals. Based on the insights gathered, I listed key assumptions about the users and the product and prioritized them to focus on the most important problems first.

To structure the ideas, I used tools like a Lean UX Canvas to outline the problem, users, solutions, and expected outcomes. I also created testable hypotheses and prioritized them to decide what should be validated first. Finally, I used the MoSCoW prioritization method (Must have, Should have, Could have, Won’t have) to identify the most critical features for the initial product.

From Research to Product Strategy

User Flow

Defining when each layer speaks, so feedback feels effortless.

Before

After

Lo-fi to High-fi

This project explored the balance between functionality and emotion-driven design, showing how important trust and comfort are when designing for international students. Using methods like empathy mapping and ideation helped shape solutions based on real user needs. It highlighted how personal finance is deeply emotional, and that impactful design comes from understanding users, with future opportunities in AI personalisation, multilingual support, and smarter expense tracking.

This project explored the balance between functionality and emotion-driven design, showing how important trust and comfort are when designing for international students.

Using methods like empathy mapping and ideation helped shape solutions based on real user needs. It highlighted how personal finance is deeply emotional, and that impactful design comes from understanding users, with future opportunities in AI personalisation, multilingual support, and smarter expense tracking.

Project Reflection

Wegofin Dashboard

Fintech

Hurestic Evaluation

Branding

Contact

I'm not just here to design products; I'm here to connect with people.

Feel free to contact me for any questions, feedback, or further assistance.

Let's talk

Contact

I'm not just here to design products; I'm here to connect with people.

Feel free to contact me for any questions, feedback, or further assistance.

Let's talk