Mintyn Budgeting Experience
- Company
- Mintyn
- Role
- Product Designer (6-month contract)
- Duration
- 2022 (6 month contract)
- My contribution
- UX research · Product definition · Interaction design · Prototyping · Usability testing
Redesigning a budgeting experience to take the manual work out of managing money.
Overview
I joined Mintyn on a six-month contract as its solo designer. We surveyed more than 15,000 active users on what to build next, and budgeting won by a clear margin. People wanted to track spending and manage money without leaving the app.
I ran the research, defined the product, and designed and prototyped the experience, including a survey and a focus group of 12 users, then tested it before launch.
| Area | Before | With budgeting |
|---|---|---|
| Tracking spending | No budgeting in the app; people wanted to track spending and set goals | Budgets with flexible timeframes, nameable by the user |
| Categories | Generic categories missed how people actually spend | Categories built around real spending habits |
| Entering transactions | Entered by hand | Automatic transaction import |
| Engagement | Budgeting was not available | 28% increase in weekly active users engaging with budgeting in the first month |
Understanding how people budget
Before designing anything, I needed a real picture of how Mintyn's users managed money day to day. I ran a survey collecting income and expense entries, then a focus group with 12 users to dig into their budgeting habits and frustrations.
- Categories had to match real spending: generic categories missed the mark; people wanted ones that reflected how they actually spend.
- One fixed cycle didn't fit everyone: some people think in weeks, others in quarters or years, not just months.
- Naming a budget made it personal: 8 of the 12 participants wanted to name their budget, not just track a number.
Building a budget that bends to you
Those findings shaped three decisions: income and expense categories built around how people actually spend, timeframes that went beyond a fixed month, and budget names that turned tracking into an intention rather than a chore. Once the first version was built, I took it straight back to users to see what actually held up.
Refining for control
I put the prototype in front of a focus group of 10 users. Their reaction confirmed what the research had pointed to, and surfaced a few things I hadn't designed for yet.
- Categories and naming landed well: testers said both matched how they wanted to plan.
- Timeframes still needed more range: 8 of 10 asked for flexibility beyond a fixed monthly budget.
- Category taps caused mistakes: 6 users accidentally reselected a category they'd already chosen.
One user told me naming a budget "made it feel like a goal I actually want to achieve." I opened up weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly timeframes, disabled categories once selected so they couldn't be tapped twice, and added clearer guidance through setup before sending the design into development.
One late request that changed the build
A round of testing in staging surfaced a request outside the original brief: users wanted to import their Mintyn transactions and have them categorized automatically, instead of entering everything by hand. It wasn't in scope, but it was exactly the kind of friction the feature was supposed to remove, so I went back into design and added it to the flow before launch.
What the numbers said
Mintyn's budgeting feature launched with flexible timeframes, categories built around real spending habits, and automatic transaction import.
28% increase in weekly active users engaging with budgeting in the first month
"Being able to import transactions and see where my money goes changed the way I manage my finances."— A Mintyn user
- Test the routine flow, not just the exciting one. Transaction import came out of a plain staging test, not a big research push.
- Personalization can be one small choice. Letting people name their own budget did more for engagement than any chart did.
- A scope change isn't automatically scope creep. The best part of this feature came from stepping past the original brief, not sticking to it.