Extra Credit
Overview
The Extra Credit App provides college students and recent graduates a platform to learn about financial credit and its purpose in today’s economy. It also provides a way to track that credit to ensure their credit score is in good standing.
User Research
When interviewing and surveying students, the three main difficulties they had were: finding jobs, financial help, and understanding credit. Now, credit and financial help do go hand in hand, however, the students who expressed concerns about credit were very passionate about the topic so that determined it’s own topic. It also determined the route I wanted to go with this app.
Logo
From the beginning of execution, I wanted to use a visual metaphor within the logo. I wanted to combine the credit card and graduation cap to play with the idea of “taking lessons” in credit. This is also why I chose the name, “Extra Credit.” It’s clever and serves its purpose.
Color
While the design is simple and clean, I still wanted some pops of colors. The main color palette is light purple, dark purple, and pale green. This serves as a chic and simple palette for a fun and simple design. The rest of the palette, yellow, blue, and red, were used sparingly to give the design some pops of color.
Typography
Considering I didn’t want to overwhelm the user, I chose a clean and friendly typeface. Proxima Nova is versatile with its use and gave me many opportunities within the layout.
First Draft
Second Draft
Final Draft
Progression
Extra Credit had gone through two iterations before the final solution. The first focused on usability, the second on design, and the final on polish. From the second draft to the third, there was a major evolution in aesthetics. This was due to taking a break from the project, then looking back with fresh eyes and feedback from the target audience.
Solution
During the process of user research, many students mention having financial struggles. This was mainly due to not being taught what was needed in their younger years. There wasn’t a credit-specific app or program outside of the general financial literacy apps. I wanted to use this opportunity to create something valuable and useful to the users through fun aesthetics and easy-to-understand lessons, along with the real-life lesson of keeping track of the credit they earn.
