MoneyBee

Educating the youth on finance through mini-games.

MoneyBee

PROJECT DETAILS

Team: Anna Han, Mary Cheung, Alice Hsiao, Jessica del Rosario
Role: UI Designer
Product: Android mobile app
Timeframe: 24 Hours (Hackathon: cmd-f)

Project Goal

Our goal was to design an app to help educate the youth (mainly girls aged 10-15) about finance. Based on our research, there was a lack of accessible and understandable resources available to the youth to learn how to navigate the stock market. We hope that MoneyBee can provide users with the tools to learn how to manage their money and investments once they begin earning income of their own.

The Problem

We identified three main problems in the current market of educating young women in finance.


The Problem

Ideation/Sketching

Due to the time constraint, it was very difficult to do extensive user research/testing. However, we were able to do some iterations of low-fi wireframes and brainstorm ideas to isolate our main user flows before moving into high-fi designing.

Low-fi
Low-fi

The Solution


The Solution
  1. Create a fun and simplified educational experience
  2. Use ‘seed’ currency to incentivize users to play more educational mini-games and increase motivation to learn about investment
  3. Simulate real-life stock market fluctuations using bee flight trails

What It Does

MoneyBee provides a fun, simplified simulation of the stock market, where each stock’s fluctuation in value is represented by the fluctuating flight trail of a bee.

Users can:

  • Earn seeds (which represent income) through playing educational mini-games that teach them about the stock market
  • Choose whether to invest their seeds in more bee stocks which can be sold later on, or redeem coupons for real store purchases from our sponsored companies
  • Learn about how to manage their finances and understand the stock market with increasing levels of mini-game difficulty


Game Example

Explaining the Design

I proposed the idea of using a bee and its flight trail to simulate the fluctuating values of stocks in the stock market, adding an easy-to-understand element of fun while still educating the youth about finance. We also chose to focus solely on the stock market as it would be much easier for the youth to grasp this one topic at first, rather than being bombarded with broad financial info. In addition, for the youth who may not be making income yet, the seeds can simulate a form of income, and the option to invest in stocks or redeem a coupon at the cost of their seeds simulates real-life financial management.

Future Steps

Along with doing more user testing to validate our designs, we would like to include more educational mini-games, and a news section that affects the bee stocks, to simulate the way in which current events can influence the stock market. It would also be important to eventually allow the user to choose how many seeds they would like to invest on their own.

Challenges + the rewards that came with them

One of the main challenges I faced was collaborating effectively with another designer, with a different skillset from my own, within a 24-hour time period to create this game. While it was quite difficult at first, we learned a lot about how to communicate with one another, and I ended up learning even more about how to use design tools such as Adobe Illustrator in doing so. At the end of the day, we were grateful to take home the first-place prize for the overall hackathon, as well as the Scotiabank sponsor prize (and new friendships) :)!


MoneyBee Presentation (finalist round of cmd-f):



Moneybee team