Building Financial Capability for Gen Z
Role
UX Designer
Duration
Ongoing
Description
Uncovering how social media affects Gen Z's financial well-being, and designing solutions to better support them, in collaboration with Capital One.
STARTED WITH
How is social media affecting Gen Z's perceptions of money?
Brain Rot was named word of the year 2024
Social media affects how people eat, sleep, shop, travel, date, work, and experience life. Our increasingly online lives also influence our spending, saving, and investing habits.
Banks are eager to capture the next generation of customers
With Gen Z accounting for over 20% of the U.S. population, banks are racing to win their loyalty and secure lifelong customers.
Access to overwhelming amounts of information affects Gen Z's relationship with money
Often, online content brings up many strong emotions that set Gen Z behavior apart from other generations.
OUR PROCESS ....SO FAR
Survey
Diary Study
Secondary Research
Initial Findings + Ideation
Feedback from industry partner
Auditing Capital One products
User Interviews
Defining problem and user
SURVEY
received 83 responses
We asked Gen Z questions about financial concerns, resources they rely on, social media usage, trust on social media, usage of different technologies, etc.
TOP 3 FINANCIAL CONCERNS FOR GEN Z
71%
59%
51%
Saving Money
Investing
Earning more income
TOP 3 RESOURCES THAT GEN Z RELY ON FOR HELP WITH FINANCES
79%
70%
54%
Websites
Friends and Family
Social Media
DIARY STUDY
recruited 4 partipants
We wanted to understand how the content consumed by Gen Z on various social media affected the way they thought about their financial well-being. We asked participants to send us screenshots or links of the content they consumed, accompanied with why that piece of content caught their attention and what emotions it brought up for them.
This giant affinity map helped us make sense about what kind of content caught Gen Z's attention and the emotions attached to it. Our analysis showed that emotions generally skewed to contemplative/negative.
Content
Attention Layer
Emotions Layer
Tip: Click on the image to view the affinity map in a FigJam file
Gen Z prefers to spend on life experiences for a better quality of life, but at the same time, they are constantly thinking about whether they can afford those experiences.
OUR LEARNINGS ....SO FAR
Gen Z encounters a lot of content on financial well-being but lacks the skills to actually implement it in their own financial situation.
Gen Z trusts parts of social media like posts from personal accounts, long-form videos, and online forums for advice. The lack of personalized and contextual advice causes them to distrust or question the utility of the content they come across.
The attention grabbing techniques employed by social media platforms create pervasive awareness that brings up emotions of contemplation, helplessness, and doubt.
At this point, we were excited to get into ideation and came up with some really creative and unconventional ideas.
But what is feasible for a bank?
But after a chat with our industry partner, we quickly realized that we needed to narrow our scope and consider what could actually be implemented within the Capital One ecosystem.
We created a feasibility matrix and considered various factors while weighing our options.
Tip: Click on the image to view the affinity map in a FigJam file
We realized we needed to conduct an in-depth audit of the financial tools provided by Capital One to ground ourselves in real solutions.
Capital One's financial tools ecosystem
Learn and Grow tools
These tools largely consisted of long blogs of text. Some interactive features like 'Map your spending' felt very surface level.
Product features
These consisted of products offered by Capital One that helped customers make decisions about how they spent and saved money. They were well curated to the needs of the customer.
This audit provided valuable insights into the potential opportunities in features for Capital One, helping us align our ideas more strategically. Drawing from the research conducted thus far, we formulated a revised problem statement to better focus our ideation efforts.
WHERE WE ARE NOW
Current Problem Statement
How might we help current and prospective customers build financial capability through interactive features embedded in the Capital One ecosystem?
Who is our user?
Demographics
-
18 to 30 years of age
-
Residing in the United States
-
Pursuing or have completed higher education
-
Have a median household income or more
Behaviors
-
Digital natives who are very technologically proficient and grew up with the internet.
-
Actively use social media for diverse content and seek advice.
-
Struggle to translate financial concepts into action due to generic or overwhelming advice.
-
Display curiosity and a desire to improve their financial well-being.
3 directions
Intentional Shopping
Our research indicates that Gen Z often struggles with knowing what they can afford.
Capital One Shopping provides a great opportunity for customers to save on their spending. Curating a positive shopping experience can help mitigate negative feelings around impulse buying.
Learn and Grow
Our research indicates that Gen Z lack the ability to apply financial concepts to their own situations.
Capital One delivers most of its knowledge-building content through blogs. There is an opportunity to build interactive tools for customers.
Credit card selection
Our research indicates that Gen Z wants to learn how to build credit and choose appropriate credit cards.
Capital One offers 32 different kinds of credit cards. Streamlining the process of finding a suitable card can drive conversion rates.
WHERE WE ARE GOING
We are looking forward to ideating and testing these concepts over Spring 2025. Please get in touch if you find this problem space interesting or if you have any questions for us!