Abyan Case Study

Project Overview

This project explores how collaborative saving can be integrated into an existing fintech product.

Through research-driven design, we identified trust as the core barrier preventing users from saving together digitally.

The proposed solution introduces a Shared Savings Wallet designed to enable collaborative saving while ensuring transparency, fairness, and emotional security.

🧩 Context

As part of an industry collaboration challenge at Apple Developer Academy, our team partnered with an existing financial savings app (Abyan) to enhance one or two features using the Design Thinking framework.

Unlike conceptual projects, this challenge involved:

• A live product in the market

• Real users

• External reviewers

• Business and system constraints

• A team-based UX workflow simulating real industry practice

Our goal was to identify a high-impact UX opportunity and propose a strategically viable feature.

📍 Where Abyan Stands Today

Abyan currently supports individual savings only.

Saving is treated as a personal activity, while shared goals are handled offline or manually.

This revealed a behavioral gap between real-life saving habits and digital support.

🔍 Research Phase

We conducted:

• User interviews

• Behavioral pattern analysis

• Exploration of collaborative saving habits

• Journey mapping

• Affinity clustering

Key Insights

• Shared goals significantly increase saving motivation

• Trust is the primary barrier in collaborative saving

• Users fear unfair withdrawals

• Transparency and control are non-negotiable

• Emotional security is more important than technical functionality

This reframed the challenge from “adding a feature” to “designing a trust system.”

🚨 Problem Framing

Users want to save together digitally, but:

• Digital platforms don’t feel safe

• Fairness between contributors is unclear

• Withdrawals create anxiety and potential conflict

The real problem was not usability.

It was emotional risk.

💡 Design Opportunity

How might we enable collaborative saving while ensuring:

• Structural fairness

• Transparent contribution visibility

• Withdrawal protection

• Emotional safety

🧱 Design Constraints

The proposed feature needed to operate within the constraints of an existing financial product.

Key considerations included:

• Maintaining compatibility with Abyan’s current saving structure

• Designing interactions that align with existing user mental models

• Ensuring the feature could support secure financial behavior

• Limiting the scope to one or two feature enhancements within the challenge timeframe

These constraints shaped the design direction and ensured the solution remained realistic within a live product environment.

🛠 The Proposed Solution

Shared Savings Wallet

A wallet-based feature allowing:

• Two users saving toward one goal

• Clear split of contributions

• Real-time progress tracking

• Structured approval-based withdrawals

⭐ Critical UX Moment

Protected Withdrawals

Withdrawals require approval from both users.

No approval → No withdrawal.

This design decision directly addresses the core trust barrier identified in research.

Instead of resolving conflict, the system prevents it.

🎨 UX & Product Contributions

My role included:

• Research synthesis

• Insight extraction

• Problem reframing

• User journey creation

• UX flow design

• Trust-centered interaction design

• Designing the approval withdrawal logic

• Participating in user testing sessions

• Presenting findings to external reviewers

📈 Value & Strategic Impact

For Users

• Increased motivation

• Reduced financial stress

• Stronger relational trust

• Transparent collaborative saving

For Abyan

• Product differentiation

• Higher engagement potential

• Shift from individual to collaborative financial behavior

• Scalable roadmap opportunity

The feature was presented as a strategic extension proposal for future product consideration.

🧭 Strategic & Feasibility Considerations

During the proposal phase, we explored how shared financial wallets operate in existing banking systems and fintech platforms.

We examined:

• How banks structure joint accounts

• Withdrawal approval mechanisms

• User notification systems

• Security expectations in financial products

While legal implementation was outside our scope as UX designers, the feature was designed with:

• Mutual approval logic

• Transparent contribution tracking

• User-controlled visibility

• Alignment with existing financial interaction patterns

This ensured the concept was not only user-centered, but strategically grounded in real-world financial models.

🌱 What This Challenge Taught Me

• Designing within an existing system requires strategic thinking

• Trust-based financial UX demands structural safeguards

• Real user feedback reshapes assumptions

• Stakeholder presentations require data-backed storytelling

• Product thinking goes beyond interface improvements