Pace Budget (App)
I designed Pace, a mobile budgeting application that shifts the focus from retrospective tracking to proactive behavioral coaching. Its core feature is the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer, which calculates and adjusts a dynamic daily limit in real-time. By minimizing the friction inherent in traditional budgeting through simulated Frictionless Logging (SMS/OCR parsing), Pace empowers users to maintain financial discipline effortlessly, regardless of their income consistency.
Mobile App
(Fintec Budgeting Helper)
Lead UX/UI (Case Study)
Market & User Research, Wire Framing, Prototyping,
High Fidelity Designs
Paper & Pen, Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Gemini Nano Banana, Google Docs
The Problem: Tedious Tracking, Past Data, No Future Guidance
Budgeting tools often fail because they rely on tedious manual entry and only show past spending, leading to high user dropout. Busy individuals struggle to consistently track transactions and lack the immediate, forward-looking guidance needed to prevent daily budget leakage and confidently manage fluctuating incomes.
The Goal: Instant Feedback, Lasting Confidence
My primary goal was to increase user adherence to a monthly budget by designing a system that makes expense logging fast and provides immediate, proactive consequences (or rewards) for daily spending decisions. Ultimately, I sought to foster greater financial confidence for users managing both fixed and irregular income flows.
Empathize
Define
Ideate
Prototype
Test
Why another Budgeting App?
Expenses rarely happen evenly; they can be small amounts over a few days, suddenly followed by a single big purchase like a Costco bill. Talking with friends and family made it clear how much we all struggle to consistently stay on top of our finances, especially with the pressure of rising prices. There is the need for a solution that's neither time-consuming nor overly complicated, and shows a reasonable daily budget that dynamically adjusts with each added income or expense. This way the system will provide immediate, reliable guidance and makes tracking fast and convenient on the go, so there are no bad surprises at the end of the month.
Market Opportunities for Pace
I conducted market research to understand the landscape of financial applications and the specific pain points experienced by users. This process involved analyzing existing competitor offerings, such as YNAB and Today's Budget, to identify gaps in user experience. I found that while competitors like YNAB focus heavily on complex planning and Today's Budget offers a similar daily limit but lacks crucial automation, a significant gap exists for a proactive tool that combines frictionless logging and a proactive, dynamic daily budget. The insights gathered directly informed the development of Pace's core value proposition: prioritizing behavioural coaching over complex planning to increase budget adherence.
Understanding User Pain Points
I conducted thorough user research through interviews with friends and family who struggle with budgeting, alongside an analysis of existing competitor offerings. This dual approach confirmed that the lack of adherence and the overwhelming feeling of complex systems were universal pain points, not isolated issues.
Several people told me they felt that time-intensive logging was incredibly frustrating, and that not everybody wants to connect their bank accounts to an external app for privacy or security reasons.
The key insight was that users need a tool that actively coaches them in the moment of spending, rather than just showing them a report a week later. This research led me to focus the design of Pace on solving four primary pain points:
Pain Points
High Friction Logging
Users abandon apps that require manually entering every transaction, leading to frustration and inaccurate budgets.
Lack of Proactive Guidance
Budgeting apps only show where money was spent, not how much is safe to spend now, leading to constant uncertainty.
Inflexibility for Irregular Income
Systems based on fixed monthly income fail users (like freelancers) whose paychecks vary, making tracking inconsistent.
Complicated Budgeting Systems
Overly complex features and financial jargon create a steep learning curve, discouraging long-term adoption.
Understanding Real Use Cases for a Daily Budgeting App
Based on the insights gathered from competitor research and interviews with friends and family, I created two distinct user personas: Laura, the Freelancer, and Ethan, the Savvy Commuter. These personas were crucial for translating abstract pain points into concrete design requirements. Laura, struggling with irregular income and high-friction logging, highlighted the need for dynamic budgets and automation. Ethan, focused on minimizing fixed costs and aggressively meeting high savings goals, emphasized the importance of a clear, strict daily spending limit and proactive coaching to prevent budget leakage. By designing Pace to solve the specific needs of Laura and Ethan, I ensured the application addresses the most common and critical solo budgeting challenges.
Keeping the Savings Goal in Mind
Ethan is rushing to catch his train and grabs a quick $8 coffee and a $12 sandwich. He worries that these small, daily leaks will sabotage his aggressive FIRE savings goal. He needs an app that can log the $20 expense in seconds without pulling out his bank card details, then instantly show him that day's Guilt-Free Spending Barometer updated to $50.00 left, giving him immediate, non-judgmental confidence to avoid any more unnecessary spending.
Irregular Income & Tax Payments
Laura just received a large, irregular client payment of $4,500 but still has a hefty tax bill looming. She needs to know exactly how much of that check is truly safe to spend today without jeopardizing her savings goals or overspending before the next invoice is paid. Since traditional apps would incorrectly show her with massive available income, she relies on Pace's dynamic Barometer to provide a disciplined, real-time daily limit that adjusts for her unpredictable cash flow.
User Journey (Ethan)
The user journey map clearly illustrates the crucial difference between Pace and traditional apps. When using older methods, the process of logging a simple expense, like Ethan's sandwich, is riddled with frustration, time-waste, and uncertainty, often hours after the spending occurred. This friction prevents adherence. Pace solves this by offering Frictionless Logging to ensure speed, immediately followed by the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer on the Home Screen. This integration provides real-time, proactive guidance, replacing Ethan's anxiety with the confidence of knowing his savings goal is still precisely on track.
Translating into Features
The findings from competitor analysis and user interviews directly translated into the core feature set of Pace, focusing on eliminating friction and delivering proactive guidance.
Recognizing that time-intensive logging and lack of real-time coaching were the primary reasons for budget failure, I designed features that prioritize speed, security, and behavioural change.
The central solution is to replace retrospective tracking with a dynamic, forward-looking limit, making adherence effortless and building financial confidence for users like Laura and Ethan.
Guilt-Free Spending Barometer
A highly visible, dynamic limit on the Home Screen that instantly adjusts based on the month's spending, telling the user exactly how much is safe to spend right now.
Frictionless Logging
Allows users to quickly log expenses in under 10 seconds, featuring fast numerical input and the simulated ability to parse expense data directly from copied SMS messages or photos.
Dynamic Budgeting Engine
Automatically adjusts the remaining daily budget (the Barometer) by evenly distributing any under- or overspent amount across the remaining days of the month, making it ideal for variable income.
Clear Financial Hierarchy
Employs a simple color-coded system and clear distinction between Income (Green), Goals (Yellow), and Expenses (Reddish-Pink) to reduce cognitive load and financial jargon.
Design & Prototype
Finding a Clear Structure
The creation of the sitemap and the definition of the user flow were critical steps in translating the user needs into a structured digital product.
The sitemap established the information hierarchy, prioritizing the Dashboard as the central hub for the most frequent action: logging expenses. Following this, defining the core user flow, such as Ethan logging an expense, ensured that the design met the need for Frictionless Logging.
By mapping out the sequence of screens, actions, and system responses, I guaranteed the process was as short as possible, avoiding unnecessary clicks (like the "Income or Expense?" choice) and immediately delivering the updated Guilt-Free Spending Barometer to provide instant feedback.
Finding the Visuals to Support the Mission
The visual design for Pace was guided by the principle of reducing cognitive load to make budgeting feel effortless. Every decision, from the color palette to the typography, focused on achieving a clear, trustworthy, and easy-to-read structure.
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The three-color hierarchy was implemented to provide instant, unambiguous feedback on the state of the user's finances, replacing complex chart interpretation with immediate visual cues.
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Inter was chosen as the primary typeface for its exceptional readability and clarity, particularly in mobile interface design.
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The logo for Pace utilizes the three main colors (Green for Income, Rose for Expense, and Yellow/Orange for Goals) in a circular chart design, symbolizing a dynamic and complete view of the user's continuously adjusting financial picture.
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The overall structure of the app emphasizes a clear hierarchy by utilizing ample white space and placing the most critical piece of information, the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer, at the absolute top of the Dashboard. This ensures the user's focus is immediately drawn to the most actionable item, supporting the app's core mission of delivering proactive, frictionless financial coaching.
Color
Positive/Income & Success (Teal/Green: #12746D): This deep, stable green family is used for Income, the "Safe" zone of the Daily Barometer, and the successful completion of goals. It conveys stability and growth.
Aspiration/Goal (Yellow/Orange: #FFB000): This warm color is reserved for active Savings Goals. It signifies a target the user is working toward, money set aside for the future, clearly distinguishing it from general income or spent money.
Outflow/Expense (Reddish-Pink: #D96677): This sophisticated coral tone is used for all regular spending and deductions. It provides a clear visual warning of money leaving the account without being as alarming as true red.
Alert/Danger (Red: #F05858): This deep red is strictly reserved for critical states (e.g., when the Daily Barometer shows a negative, overspent balance), demanding immediate attention.
Typography
High Legibility: Inter is known for its tall x-height and clear differentiation between similar characters (like 'I' and 'l'), which is crucial for displaying financial data where accuracy is paramount.
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Neutral and Trustworthy: The font maintains a clean, modern, and non-distracting look. It supports the app's professional tone without becoming overly formal or distracting from the numbers.
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Optimized for Screens: It renders clearly across different screen sizes and resolutions, ensuring that the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer and transaction amounts are always immediately legible at a glance.
Testing the High Fidelity Prototype
With the research validated, the visual design defined, and the user flows mapped out, I moved into creating the high-fidelity prototype.
This crucial phase brought all findings together: the three-color system was implemented to provide instant feedback, Inter was used for maximum legibility, and the entire structure prioritized the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer.
The prototype demonstrated the seamless experience of Frictionless Logging, allowing users to immediately see the dynamic budget update.
This final interactive prototype served as the essential artifact to test the application's core hypothesis: that combining speed with proactive, clear visual coaching would significantly increase user confidence and budget adherence.
Neccessary Iterations
Initial testing quickly led to critical design iterations necessary for supporting real-world complexity and user control.
Recognizing that irregular income required more than one input point, I updated the Boarding and Your Budget screen to allow users to add and manage multiple income streams.
Furthermore, to ensure the most important information was instantly accessible, the Monthly Totals (Income, Expense, Goal) were moved from the bottom of the input screens into a prominent position at the top.
Finally, addressing mistakes and giving users control, the Recent Activity list on the Dashboard was enhanced to allow users to easily delete or edit logged expenses, ensuring the integrity of the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer remains accurate and trustworthy.
Handling Multiple Income Streams
Users might have more than one fixed income a month so they need to be able to add several income amounts.
Highlighting Key Summaries
Monthly totals were moved from the bottom of the screen to the top as users said the sum of it all is what they are trying to grasp.
Enhancing User Control on the Dashboard
Users wanted the possibility to edit or delete logged expenses in case they made a mistake or the situation changed to keep the daily limit accurate.
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Adding Multiple Income Streams
Users complained that they need to able to add more than one Income. To properly account for this financial reality, I iterated the design to allow for the possibility of adding and managing multiple income streams within the Onboarding and Your Budget screen by adding a prominent ( + )-Button.
Move Totals to a Prominent Position
Recognizing that users' first priority is understanding their overall financial standing, the Monthly Totals (Income, Expense, Goal) were strategically moved to the top of Budget screens. This ensures users immediately see a high-level summary of their current financial health, giving them a quick context for their spending and a clear idea of where they stand before diving into the detailed category data.
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Make Logged Expenses Editable
To ensure the integrity of the budget and provide users with control, I implemented the ability to easily delete or edit already logged expenses within the recent activity list on the Dashboard. This crucial feature allows users to quickly correct mistakes or remove accidental entries, ensuring the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer remains accurate and trustworthy. The user will also have the possibility to delete via swipe motion.
Final Thoughts
In talking to users, I realized over and over again, that efficiency and convenience are two incredibly important factors to keep them using the app. By focusing the design on Frictionless Logging and the Guilt-Free Spending Barometer, I created a simple yet powerful tool that builds financial confidence without demanding time-intensive administration.
Moving forward, the most crucial next step for Pace would be to expand its functionality to support collaboration, allowing users like husbands and wives to share and track their joint flexible spending against a unified daily pace, further cementing its role as a versatile and comprehensive financial coach.
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User testing should also be conducted in regard to the report section and what is actually helpful or missing in order to educate users about their spending habits and give them better financial control and success.
