Designing Dashboards

DESIGNING
DASHBOARDS

Designed a budgeting dashboard for users to help adjust spending habits and plan for long-term goals

ROLE:

Wireframing, Prototyping

PROJECT TYPE:

Case Study

TIMELINE:

3 Hours, October 2023

TOOLS:

Figma

INTRODUCTION

Designing a budgeting app that turns impulse buying into travel goals

I was tasked with creating a budgeting dashboard for a user named Mary. She wants to find a budgeting tool where she can clearly see where her money is going. Her goal was that she wants to travel but is currently struggling to save and needs to get her finances in check.

Mary’s goal is to change her spending habits and learn how to think long term instead of just impulsively buying. She wants an app that is accessible anywhere, especially when grocery shopping and something that is easy to use.

THE CHALLENGE:

Mary needs a budgeting app to help her save each month while tracking expenses like rent, credit cards, transit, groceries, and utilities—leaving any extra for shopping or entertainment

THE SOLUTION:

Develop a user-friendly app that tracks expenses, lets you distribute your funds, and provides monthly budgeting insights — all in one convenient location

LOW-FIDELITY WIREFRAMES

Doing quick sketches to decide what features I wanted to incorporate

I like to start my design process by sketching low-fidelity wireframes as it’s a great way to explore different layout options and visualize how key features might come together. This early step helps me quickly test ideas, see what works visually, and ensure the structure makes sense before moving into the mid-fidelity prototype

FINAL DESIGN

Delivering a functional prototype on a tight timeline

Due to a short timeline, certain steps I typically incorporate into my design process — user research, user flow mapping, mid-fidelity wireframes, a detailed UI style guide, and usability testing — were not possible for this project. Despite these constraints, I focused on delivering a functional and intuitive prototype that included:

Home page with a budget breakdown
Spending page that went more into details about her transactions
A budget page for each expense and allowed Mary to pay them off
An insights page that gave monthly summaries and how much she saved

REFLECTION

A quick design turn around but still loving the results

This was a really quick and fun design job to do. This app has much room for improvement and if the proper user research was done, I could have gotten better insight on the functionality. It was very quick paced and didn’t allow me to do the necessary steps I normally would do when creating a prototype.

We were just asked to design a dashboard incorporating certain features that the user, Mary, would need. Given the short timeline, I am still proud of how it came out and I love the design and color palette I chose for this prototype.