Connecting your finances to your experiences.
About this project
For a financial giant like BIDV, Vietnam's Gen Z population represents a critical, yet untapped, market. How can BIDV build a relationship with the next generation of customers by transforming financial anxiety into financial empowerment? I led the product design initiative to create Olivo, a personal finance management application geared towards younger audiences.
Role
Product design lead
Prototype developer
Timeline
June - July
2025
6 weeks project
Team
2 product designers
Skills
Interaction design
UX Research
The goal
Appeal to Gen Z users, and build a personal finance management application that can promote financial management & build healthy financial habits.
Problem 1: The Multi-Account Tracking Nightmare
Young Vietnamese users leverage multiple accounts and e-wallets, making it overwhelming to track their spending and overall financial health.
Solution
The Interactive Finance Dashboard
Designed a fully interactive, single-view dashboard to centralize balances and allow users to dynamically adjust timeframes to see daily expense comparisons against income.
Impact
Centralized finances in one view, providing clear, analyzed insights instead of static data.
Problem 2: The Burden of Expense Management
Users find manual expense logging exhausting, and bank notifications often lack the context needed to accurately identify categorize transactions after some time.
Solution
Contextual Editing via Notifications
I minimized the necessary steps by allowing users to instantly rename and recategorize transactions directly from the push notification long-press menu, eliminating the need to open the main application.
Impact
Chunked down user effort, solving the fatigue associated with maintaining financial records.
Problem 3: It's more than just numbers!
Users pay for something that brought them joy, or something they had to - connecting the experience with the numbers give users a clearer idea where they are spending their money.
Solution
Grouped Transactions & Contextual Attachments
I introduced a feature allowing users to group related transactions into 'memories' (e.g., a trip) and applied clear visual hierarchy and color coding to distinguish between single transactions and transaction groups.
Impact
Turned monotonous transactions into a record of past experiences, promoting better recall and review habits.
Our journey
We had a 6 weeks design sprint for Research, Iteration and Design.
Initial Research Goals
Our target audience are those who are in their late teens to mid-twenties, finishing school and starting their career.
User Empathy Map
23 y.o. entry-level data analyst from Hanoi
Uncertain
Overwhelmed
Exhausted
Hopeful
SAYS
“I’m saving up for a trip”
“I want to save up but I want to enjoy my life as well.”
“I’ve always wanted to know more about personal finances”
THINKS
What is this transaction again?
Who looks at these graphs?
How many times did I Uber last month?
DOES
Create saving plans
Set up budgets
Understand user needs through the lens of Self-Determination Theory
I drew from Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000), which emphasizes three psychological needs that drive lasting engagement: autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Each key feature in Olivo was intentionally designed to support one or more of these needs.
Design details
Building a landing screen users want to visit & charts they want to look at.
Homepage - Iteration
Static charts couldn't provide information users need.
The colors and information layout lack strong recognizability.
“I want to compare my spending with my income.”
Navigation to charts isn’t clear enough.
“I want to be able to see all types of charts right when I enter the homepage.”
Homepage - Final Design
Adjustable charts to track finances day by day expenses
The charts are gathered and distinguished by corresponding colors.
Help users understand financial trends; could expand into detailed analysis.
Minimizing the effort to manage expenses
Design Exploration
Use images to add transaction details.
Hypothesis
Uploading images reduces user effort when editing transaction details.
However,
Usability testing results show that uploading images for transactions requires significant effort from users.
Solution,
Use notifications to help users stay aware of spending and edit information if needed.
Hold down on the notification to access options, then enter a new transaction name
Auto-categorize based on transaction name.
The original transaction name is stored in the transaction details.
Designing a transaction page with clear hierarchy between collections and independent transactions.
Applying visual hierarchy to distinguish grouped transactions.
Iteration 1
Expandable rows risk overlooked data and user misunderstanding.
There’s no clear distinction between single and grouped transactions.
Iteration 2
The amounts of transactions within the group are lighter in color and use smaller font.
Differences in size and position disrupt the alignment of the list.
Iteration 3
Replacing icons with bullet points helps restore list alignment.
The color recognizability of transaction categories is reduced.
Final Design
Enhance recognition using colors.
Clear distinction between single and grouped transactions.
List items are properly aligned.
Impact
Pitching our work
Getting feedback from the amazing designers at BIDV opened my eyes to aspects I haven't considered in my designs, and greatly broadened my horizons! If you want to hear more about the many explorations I took for this project, contact me at lammy@umich.edu.