An iPhone Application for Money Management

INFO 3: User-Centered Design

Team 9: Sarah Zhou, Kathryn Kuan, Zach Griswold

The Design Problem!

Not many people are comfortable talking about money and how they manage their personal finances. This is especially an issue that the majority of undergraduate students face when heading off to college for the first time (Yargo, 2010). There is a preconceived notion that finances will take care of themselves, come adulthood. That is simply not the case (Driscoll, 2011). Undergraduate college students are all prone to the stress that stems from living in a modern society; personal finances are often the last concern on their mind. In light of having to balance many tasks at oncelike homework, relationships, extracurricular activities, and internshipsit is understandable that managing personal finance can be pushed aside as a lower priority in their daily routine (Smith, 2011). Regardless, it is important for students to realize that they need to be proactive in managing their money because balancing personal finances is a lifelong task. There is no doubt that many college students have trouble keeping up with payment deadlines, especially those who have moved away from home for the first time and have established some sort of financial independence from their parents income. Students do not always know how much is due, and when to pay it (Lucas, 2007). Our team was inspired by the following question: how can this age of young adults, specifically undergraduate college students who are financially independent, keep track of all their bill payments and deadlines? The following design attempts to address this challenge.

The Project Scope!

To address the problem, a MoneyManager mobile application will be developed to remind users of upcoming bills and amounts due for each payment. MoneyManager is a free mobile application that has been designed specifically for any released version of the iPhone or iPod touch device. The prototype is initially built as a web application to allow for rapid development and testing, but the MoneyManager mobile application will be an application built using the iOS SDK and will be freely available in the Apple App Store. Other mobile platforms have been excluded because the development team is restricted in skillset and only has experience in developing with iOS. Users will be able to set the method through which they receive alerts and reminders with the application. MoneyManager is defaulted for users to receive an SMS (Short Message Service) alert as an instant method of notification 24 hours prior to each

payment, and users can adjust the length and number of reminders to their preference. For users who do not have unlimited text services, email alerts are an alternative option. Built-in alarms and calendar notices are out of scope and not a part of this specification. However, they may appear in future versions of the application. MoneyManager will prompt first time users to create an application-specific account that is separate from their bank account (with unique usernames and passwords) so that their settings can be retrieved even if their current device gets lost, damaged, or stolen. By doing so, users will also be given an option to set up direct deposit and auto-pay systems that will allow for bills to be paid directly from the application. For example, users can set up an automatic payment rule on their bill balance to be paid automatically on the day that the bill is due (Alexander, 2010). A contracted agreement between participating banks will allow certain features of the third-party application to access sensitive information from the banks database. This is how the application will determine the deadlines and the amount the user owes for each upcoming bill. The data for each account is securely transferred and stored on a remote server maintained by the application development team. The physical server can only be accessed by them while user data remains completely private (Ober, 2011). It is important to note that this mobile application assumes that users already have a bank account. However, users do not need to create a bank account nor connect their account to the application they can still use the notification features of the application to set reminders manually. Data on the device itself is encrypted using two layers of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and can only be accessed after the user enters their Personal Identification Number (PIN). If an invalid PIN has been entered ten consecutive times, the data on the device will be destroyed to protect the users bank information (McCaffrey, 2003). This login restriction is already standard practice for the iPhones enabled passcode lock featurestandard iPhone factory settings are defaulted to ten incorrect attempts before erasing all data. The application can sync with multiple user bank accounts (including credit, checking, and savings), but the application will ask the user to select a default bank account to auto-pay bills. Though the application is a financial tool, it has a narrow focus and is not meant to be used to forecast trends in budgeting and investing. Anything related to the banks own interface and security is considered out of scope. MoneyManager will not incur any hidden charges on any of the users bank accounts. MoneyManager is targeted to appeal to a young, college-aged demographic. The application is designed for college students who have no vision, motor skill, or hand-eye coordination impairments. The users device must have an active Internet connection, either through wireless access points or a cellular network connection, to download the application, sync with user accounts, keep a log of bill payment reminders, and auto-pay

bills online. Recent records are cached within the application if the user does not have an active Internet connection and will be synchronized the next time the user connects.

Assumptions
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Banks provide an application programming interface (API) for 3rd party developers. Security (encryption, for example) is handled by the iPhones operating system and bank APIs. Banks track and permit automatic payments for recipients. The setup of account synchronization is handled elsewhere; login as well. Notifications themselves would be handled by an outside system. Bills are to be paid via the associated synced bank account.

The Target Audience!

The following personas stem from people who exhibit specific characteristics of the targeted users. (Some characteristics may have been altered to protect the identity of the users in the study.) The main focus is that these personas have some form of income and bills. These bills are tracked and payable through the MoneyManager application.

Profiles
Sarah Kane
Sarah Kane Sarah Kane is 23 years old and is half Korean. She is about to graduate from the University of Washington with a degree in Journalism. Sarah has a credit card, checking, and savings with Bank of America. She lives with a few friends on campus in a house, where rent and utilities costs $750 a month. She studies as a full time, in-state student ($3,000 per quarter, or $1000 per month) and works part-time as a waitress at The Pink Door near Pike Place Market. In terms of income, Sarah earns $20 an hour (including tips) and works 25 hours per week ($2800 per month). She is very sociable and has stated many times that she cant live without [her] phone. It is no surprise that Sarah is a frequent text messenger. As a student adept with current technology, she is very familiar with mobile applications and has over 50 applications installed on her

iPhone. Sarah uses her phone as an alarm clock, watch, and even as a planner. At times, Sarah can be known to procrastinate, and she has a tendency to ignore important tasks until the last minute. She does not like money leaving her account prematurely and receives no financial support from her parents. Sarah has a difficult time keeping track of personal finances and remembering when to pay her bills. Due to her living situation, mail is often mixed up and difficult to keep track of in the community living space. The bill notices arrive early and Sarah often is in too much of a hurry to write them down before they get lost. She has often paid bills late, resulting in extra fees. Sarah wants to be more proactive in the way she keeps track of payment deadlines and bills owed. She recently downloaded MoneyManager, an application for the iPhone, and synced it with her consistent monthly and quarterly payments. This application will alert her of amounts due at set intervals via vibration/beep (defaulted 24 hours in advance, and at three hour intervals, and an hour before the cut off until the bill has been paid). Sarah still needs to remember to enter variable payments like water and utilities into the application as soon as she receives notices in the mail so that the application can remind her to pay such specific bills on time.

Jonathan Winn
Jonathan Winn is a 19 year old Computer Science major at the University of Washington. As a sophomore, Jonathan has a credit, checking, and savings account with Wells Fargo. He lives in his apartment off The Ave with his friend Gary, another Computer Science major who pays monthly subscription fees to games like World of Warcraft (both of them play online games extensively). This is Jonathans second year living away from home. His rent is $600 a month and utilities are paid to the suppliers monthly. He studies as a full time student and his tuition is paid by his parents. He works part-time as a teaching assistant for introductory computer programming classes. Jonathan earns $11 an hour and works 15 hours per week ($660/month). He receives $200 for food from parents each month. Jonathan is known to be social with friends but he generally avoids large parties. He would rather hang out to study, eat, or play computer or board games. Jonathan has owned an iPhone since its initial release and is familiar with mobile applications. He is by nature a very well organized person and tends to pay bills as soon as he can to avoid late penalties. Jonathan is an out-of-state student who has only lived away from home for just over a year. He was in the dorms his first year and didnt like the small living space and lack of

privacy (plus, it was too loud). His parents were opposed to his idea of living in other quarters but agreed to let him if he paid for it himself (they offered to give him an allowance of $200/month for groceries). He was recently accepted as a teaching assistant for the computer science department and will be helping with CSE 143 this quarter. This is Jonathans first experience with managing his own money and paying bills. He recently downloaded MoneyManager, an application for the iPhone, and synced it with his monthly payments and bank account to keep track of both his allowance and income. This application will alert him of upcoming bill amounts through an incoming text message.

Hypothetical Scenarios
The aforementioned users are both undergraduate students and are familiar with mobile applications. Sarah represents the financially independent student who generates his/her own income and uses it for all expenses. She has numerous types of bills which can be synced to the application or inputted manually. She also has an independent stream of income. Jonathan has multiple sources of income, both of which can be tracked by MoneyManager. He represents students who are not necessarily 100% independent or self-sufficient. His monthly allowance is a direct reflection of an interviewee who mentioned this type of cash flow. The following scenarios are examples of how MoneyManager can come into play in their lives.

The Buzzard Beater: Paying Bills at the Last Minute

Sarahs next rent payment is due in the amount of $750 on Friday, April 29th by 5 pm Eastern Standard Time. It is currently Thursday, April 28th at 2 pm Pacific Standard Time and her phone vibrates with a message notifying her that rent is due in 24 hours. She is in class and ignores the message. After class she goes to work and puts her phone in a locker. It notifies her again at 5 pm, and once more at 8 pm. After work, she quickly checks the messages and forgets about them. The next morning, Sarah woke up to her phone alarm at 9 am and sees an additional notification but feels too rushed to get to class to worry about it. She finishes class at 12:30 pm and a final reminder at 1 pm indicates that there is a one-hour window remaining to pay the bill. Realizing this, Sarah immediately uses the bill payment function on MoneyManager to pay the bill on time. Why she downloaded MoneyManager: Sarah receives bills in many formats (email, letter notices) and some messages easily get lost or forgotten, whether its in an inbox with dozens of new messages every day or on the dining table cluttered with old and new mail. She often glances at the notices and puts them aside due to the lack of urgent action required because bill statements are generally issued prematurely at least

a couple weeks before they are actually due. To her, the MoneyManager application sounded like a concrete solution because she wanted to centralize the method in which she tracked bill payment information, rather than using her paper planner. Sarah loved using the applications syncing capabilities, and was impressed with the seamless integration between different bank accounts. Overall, MoneyManager put her worries of forgetting to pay prematurely received bills to rest.

The Patient Payer: Waiting for the Paycheck

According to the sensitive information that the application was contractually allowed to pull from Jonathans private online banking account, his next sewage payment is due in the amount of $35 on Friday, September 29th by 5 pm Eastern Standard Time. It is currently Tuesday, September 26th at 9 am and his phone vibrates with a message notifying him that sewage is due in three days. He sees that the amount is greater than his account balance but he is expecting a direct deposit from tutoring that evening so he waits and ignores notices for that day. The next morning, Jonathan receives a notice from MoneyManager at 9 am and sees that his account balance is now high enough to pay the bill. He uses MoneyManagers bill payment function to successfully pay the sewage bill on time, with days to spare. Why he downloaded MoneyManager: Jonathan is extremely technologically savvy and enjoys testing new apps. He saw the MoneyManager application in the Apple App Store while browsing for new applications and thought it would be an easy, tech-forward way to keep track of his income and bills. He does not like worrying about money so he rarely logs into his bank account online to check his balance. He enjoys that the application streamlines all the necessary information and makes it quick and easy to view his balances and pay bills without having to log on to multiple sites; how redundant! was his claim to that process. As a pursuer of elegant technological solutions, Jonathan expressed no regrets in downloaded MoneyManager.

The User Tests!

A total of six undergraduate students were chosen to serve as testers of the prototype of the MoneyManager application. These six students were chosen at random and were not familiar with the development process of MoneyManager. Of the six testers, two are highlighted below because their responses are most representative of the entire group of tested users.

The following script was read out loud to the users who were separately tested in a closed and quiet environment. All users were given high-fidelity prototypes of the working application, which was tested through a provided iPhone 3G device. Everyone involved in the testing process was capable of reading, writing, and speaking English as their primary language. Our design team was responsible for administrating the user tests and recording user observations.

Test Protocol Script

Thank you for participating in this usability study. Today you will be testing MoneyManager, a mobile application developed to help keep track of income and upcoming fiscal obligations as well as paying them. Please think out loud throughout the process, describing in detail the decisions and observations you are making. Keep in mind that the focus of this test is strictly on the design of the mobile application. You will be given three tasks. Please proceed to complete the three tasks, one followed by another, using the MoneyManager mobile application. Indicate if you have any questions or comments that you would like addressed. 1. Notifications (Type of Alert): Enable SMS notifications 2. Pay a Bill: Find the next upcoming bill. What is the cost and when is it due? Pay it. 3. Create a Bill Manually: Set up a notification to pay $80 for house utilities on May 5, 2011. Once you have finished all three tasks, you will be given five follow-up questions. These questions are designed to assess the strengths and the weaknesses of the application. Feel free to elaborate on any and all responses to the best of your ability. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. What did you find confusing about the prototype? What parts were most intuitive and why? What parts were the least intuitive and why? Would you use this application yourself? Would you recommend this application to most undergraduate college students?

Thank you for completing the usability study. Your responses will be used for research and development purposes and shared only between group members and class instructors. We appreciate your time and contribution.

Evidence of User Testing

The following images are user genuine agreement signatures from each user involved that verifies their participation in the conducted study. Each member of the design team tested the application prototype with two separate undergraduate students on the dates indicated on the user agreement.

Tester #1: Ryuji Maung | Tester #2: Sundona Kittikhoun

Tester #3: Randy Feldon | Tester #4: Martin Wulf

Tester #5: Ben Lee | Tester #6: Yafete Yemuru

Test Observations
Randy Feldon
Description of Users Thought Processes and Actions
The gear was very intuitive for the user to find. The user enabled notification by checking box. Saved phone number in field. Randy first clicked on Bills from the home menu, and then easily saw Upcoming Bills. User then clicked on Credit Card because it was the next payment due on the list. Clicked on Pay Now and paid the bill. The user was slightly confused on how to add a new bill into the system. Eventually figured out to click on the plus + sign, though it was noted to be too small. Once that was solved, creating a bill was simple because a new formed opened on the screen.

Assigned Tasks
Enable Notifications

Execution Time
16 seconds

Pay a Bill

7 seconds

Create a Bill Reminder

30 seconds

According to Randy, adding a bill was confusing because there was no text that indicated how to do so. However, paying bills through the application was very intuitive for him because all she had to do was click a box. He verbally stated that some home menu titles did not really make sense at first; i.e. Account. Randy has expressed some overall interest in the application, but he feels that he can resort to other methods like a notebook organizer to manually keep track of bill payments and deadlines. However, he did note that the time it takes him to manually insert bill information (refer to the above charts Execution Time column) is significantly less than the time it takes for him to retrieve his pocket organizer and handwrite the information. Randy was a bit put off by the amount of time screens took to load and by the amount of work it took to input new bills into the application database. He also has difficulty in trusting his private information on a student-made product. Randy believes that the MoneyManager application, at its current state, still needs to be polished before he can fully invest his time and trust into it. Ultimately, though, Randy was impressed with the application and believes it has potential.

Ryuji Maung
Description of Users Thought Processes and Actions
The user selected Account from the main menu. He then looked at the page and realized it was a dead end. The user saw the more button but assumed it would be more account information. The user navigated back to main, selects bills scrolls down, knows hes looking for a settings type menu but cant find it. Goes back; sees settings button, but it was hard to find. The user finds the correct screen and selects SMS notifications; inputs phone number, then selects save. The user selects bills and then scrolls to upcoming bills. The user gets confused by the different sorting categories. Selects credit card, the top bill due in the fewest number of days compared to others shown due in the amount of $100, selects pay now. The user selects bills selects add bill button (found it quickly because of the previous encounter with the settings button but otherwise it might have been difficult to find). He then entered the name of the bill, amount, selected calendar date, and selected save.

Assigned Tasks

Execution Time

Enable Notifications

24 seconds

Pay a Bill

15 seconds

Create a Bill Reminder

28 seconds

Per Ryuji, the most confusing aspect throughout the application was the location of the settings buttonhe claimed that it was too hard to find. However, Ryuji did say that the icons on the screen made it easy to differentiate what text was interactive and what text was static. He was also impressed to see how easy it was to make payments online through auto-pay. It is important to note that Ryuji did not link his actual account with the application; instead he used a dummy account that was automatically programmed into the application for testing purposes. Ryuji firmly stated that the concept of paying bills through the application was very clear for him, and that all tasks took less than a minute to complete (refer to the Execution Time column above). When asked if he would use the application himself, Ryuji said that he felt optimistic. He realized that there are other similar iPhone applications already out in the market, but likes the look and feel of MoneyManager. Although he probably wont use the finished product on a daily basis, he stated that he would keep it in his iPhone anyways. Ryuji noted that users like him who get bored easily will stop using the application after a week or so.

The Application Details!

The iOS mobile application contains four major components. The first component is the landing page which serves as the first piece of navigation a user sees and allows for the display of important notifications. The next component is the account information screen which shows the user their current balance and recent transactions. The final components are a list of recently paid, upcoming and overdue bills that can be sorted in different methods and can be quickly paid on a sub-page. Each of the low-fidelity prototyped sketches (as shown in the following sections) is developed for the iPhone. Directly below the preliminary sketches of each major application screen is a high-fidelity image of the application screen. The tradeoff of the design sacrifices graphics for text. The MoneyManager application does not come equipped with any elaborate background wallpaper or decorative icons. Instead, the text in the application is interactive if placed within a rounded blue rectangle. This concept has been consistent throughout the entire application. The design team aims for a very simplistic and minimalist design to avoid clutter on the screen of the application.

Screen 1
a. Decision: The creation of the home landing page serves as primary navigation into application features. The landing page color scheme set the tone for the rest of the application. Rationale: Originally there were two color schemes; one was lighter with a white base (refer to the Prototype 1.0 to the right which resembles the satisfactory default background color scheme of the iPhone) and the other was darker with a black background (which was simply derived as a darker variant of the preexisting default color scheme). Based on user feedback, five out of the six testers suggested the darker color scheme should be chosen for aesthetic appeal because its colors stand out more and the contrast is pleasing. b. Decision: The settings icon is placed in the upper right corner of the home page as a gear icon. Rationale: The icon itself is familiar to iPhone users as its published user guide specify how applications commonly have a settings button. The gear icon is indicative of settings and will mostly remain in that location throughout the application (Apple, 2011). c. Decision: The number of pending bills is displayed directly on home page in a rounded text box halved in yellow (upcoming bills) and red (overdue bills). Rationale: People want access to the most pertinent information as quickly and easily as possible (Emerson, 2007). Thus, the number of upcoming and overdue bills is displayed on the home page instead of a separate menu because this display prevents users from navigating through superfluous screens. Homepage notifications indicate the status of looming bills. In American society, the color yellow is symbolic of caution for upcoming bills and the color is representative of priority with overdue bills being red and upcoming bills being yellow (Henderson, 2008).

Prototype 1.0

Prototype 2.0

Prototype 3.0

Screen 2
d. Decision: The header of the bills screen will be the darkest part of the screen. This important area of screen real estate will also function as a navigation bar (McPherson, 2011). Backward navigation is needed to return the user to the home landing page. Subheadings will prioritize bills as overdue, upcoming, and recently paid, in that specific order. Rationale: Tested users expressed that the heading of the page clearly indicates the current section of the application (we noticed an upward shift in the movement of the eyes of all six users upon them accessing this specific screen). This informs users on where they are in relation to other screens and will provide them the opportunity to return to the homepage. In terms of rank precedence, overdue bills are listed at the top because they are presumably the most urgent and interest is being accumulated on them. Next are upcoming bills because they require attention in the future. Recently paid bills are less urgent because they were taken care of already and exist only for reference. e. Decision: Bill sorting options are ranked in order by the users preference. The current selection has been defaulted to due dates as priority. Bills can also be classified by alphabetical order or by their respective amounts. Rationale: Allowing users to customize how they want their bills to be displayed will help them make decisions on which bills to pay first. Four out of the six testers found the due dates as the most important mode of ranking bill payments. Moreover, this portion of the screen displays a listing of overdue, upcoming and paid bills in an easy-to-read format. Long lists are allowed to be scrolled across the screen with a simple flick or drag of the users finger. All colors on this and following screens have been selected with C notion of how color can affect mood.

Prototype 1.0

Prototype 2.0

Prototype 3.0

f. Decision: In addition to the back, button, a new button will allow users to input new bills into the MoneyManager database. This is also where users can record variable bills (like water and utilities that vary in cost from month to month) manually. Rationale: The new bill button is placed in the upper right corner of the bills page (where settings was originally located on the home page). In the second prototype, the icon was simply a plus sign in black and white. This concept needed to be changed because testers could not find the button immediately to add a new bill. For the most recent prototype, the color of the new bill button has been changed to yellow. This allows for a strong contrast against a black background so that users can instantly find where they can add new bill payments. The word new was accompanied next to a plus (+) symbol to further indicate the buttons purpose of adding a new payment. According to one tester, this button also makes the screen title more symmetrical, and thus more balanced and sexy. g. Decision: The name of each bill displayed will be listed in accordance to the users preference (by due date, by amount, or by alphabetical order) and each bill in its respective text box will be clickable with the users finger. A full display of the bills information will pop up on the screen from a listed format and will illustrate complete details of the bill upon the users click. Rationale: On the bills page, each bill has its own bar type button with a title and number of days until it is due. Two of out of six testers expressed a preference for the button to show the actual due date of the bill rather than days until it is due but this advice was disregarded. However, this small minority of testers was not enough to convince the design team to change the existing format. Currently, displaying the number of days until a bill is due gives a better sense of timeline proximity than the numerical due date. If the due date was used instead, the user would have to compare it to the current date which requires more thought and effort. In addition, due to the size of the screen resolution, there was simply no room to have the bill display the entire due date in addition to its name on one single line in a listed format. However, if the user selects an individual bill, its actual due date will be shown, so this information is still readily available. The full view display for each bill includes its title, recipient, due date (with days until due next to it), amount due, and options to pay now or pay later. All other payment information will be considered out of scope. The full view contains more information about the bill under the assumption that the user might want to see it before paying. After much thought and discussion, this seemed like the most reasonable place to place the option to pay the bill (assuming that the user has a bank account to directly sync up auto-payments).

Screen 3
h. Decision: The bill payment modal screen is displayed to indicate a new message. This title is not at the top of the screen, but rather in a new popup window. Rationale: A popup screen has been chosen instead of a regular one (such as those similar to the first two screens) because popups focus the users attention. Popup screens blanking out the background and use very clear calls to action (Keen, 2011). When a user is making a monetary transaction online, its important to focus all attention on the transaction and not on all other information present on current or past screens. i. Decision: The alert message will include the details of the bill, including the due date, the bill amount, and who the payee is. Rationale: All six of the testers agreed that accessible bill payment information will help them to assess the severity of the bill, allowing them to make a better decision in comparison to other bills that need to be paid around the same time frame. All users of the application could customize the sound of alerts by choosing from the iPhones default alarm rings, or from a song listed in the iPhones iPod library. Decision: The popup message will include interactive buttons for paying the selected bill immediately or at a later time. The pay now button will be highlighted with yellow to grab the users attention. Rationale: The application does in fact support scheduling payments to occur at later times. All users viewed the account page in the main menu and were aware of how much money they had in their account to prevent them from incurring any overdraft fees. A check sign was placed next to the pay now text to validate the users choice in paying the bill. Once a payment is made, the popup automatically closes and a confirmation message appears. All copies of autopay transactions are emailed to the users account.
Prototype 1.0

j.

Prototype 2.0

Prototype 3.0

Screen 4
k. Decision: This diagram displays a different screen that can be selected from the main menu. The account information screen is consistent with the layout of the bill paying screen. Rationale: This screen remained anchored on the homepage. Four out of six users found this to be one of the most used features of the application. Because of its difference in nature from other screens, it has its own page separate from the bill payment section. l. Decision: A current account balance for the selected account is displayed on the upper area of the screen. This allows for the user to view how much money is in their account and to help determine if the user should pay certain bills now or later (Lei D'Anna, 2010). Rationale: This screen displays the most text out of all screens in the application. Because of this, it was very important to use color to differentiate the varying values. In agreement with McPherson, the color green was chosen to represent how much money the user has remaining, while red represented the withdrawals from the account for payment of bills and other items.

Prototype 1.0

m. Decision: By default, the application displays the users most recent transactions for the past month; this length can be adjusted in the settings menu. Rationale: Five users felt that maintaining an account history of more than one month was not important for a mobile application. In depth details can be better investigated on the users own banking website. n. Decision: In initial sketches of the application, the users bank was linked at the bottom of the screen. This linked has been omitted in the final version. Rationale: The linked has been removed because the screen is already inundated with a long list of transactions. Two users already expressed the same sentiments. Any further interaction with the users banking site is out of scope for the application.

Prototype 2.0

Prototype 3.0

The Working Prototype !

A working demo is available for testing. Instructions for installing the iPhone application: 1. 2. 3. 4. Turn on iPhone and open the Safari browser Go to http://zachgriswold.info:360/m2proto/p2 Type in Username: webtest Type in Password: Info360!

Please contact any member of Team 9 if the application does not work.

Impact and Significance !

The overall data and observations collected throughout user testing have shown that the application does provide a solution to the design problem. Users have stated that they would actually invest time in inputting all bill payment information into their application if the application would remind them of payment deadlines in the near future. Moreover, users have expressed that they would be more than willing to try out the final product of the application on a regular basis not only for its customized reminders, but also for its other feature of monitoring how much money they currently have in their bank account. Because students may not always know exactly when their next bill payment is due, MoneyManager provides the needed functionality to inform its users on how much is due for upcoming payments, how much money they currently have in their active account balance, and the ability to make automatic payments online at their convenience. The biggest challenge for MoneyManager is incentivizing users to actually use the application. Undergraduate college students need to be intrinsically reminded that paying bills late can result in additional fees and potentially detrimental effects on their credit scores. That is why MoneyManager is so important: it can help students avoid paying late penalties. Moreover, the use of the application can actually help students establish great bill payment habits. Credit scores can be improved as a result of using the application to paying bills on time (Sahadi, 2002). With the current age of undergraduate students burdened with even more tasks and commitments than past generations (Szalavitz), there has never been a greater need and a riper market for such an application.

Bibliography!
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