1
APP • 2022
Ask.Fi
Scope
Optimise elements
Introducing new aspects
Make search intuitive
Role
Product Design
Hand-off
Testing
Timeline
10 months
Platform
Mobile
Overview
Ask Fi is our moonshot idea within Fi's, designed with a singular vision—to help you unravel your finances. This innovative feature serves as your personal financial search engine. You can ask it questions like "How much did I spend on.
It can help perform complex task that would otherwise need you to take your calculator out and sort through rows of data.
Your finance search engine
Perform payments, search for features, check your investments or even set reminders. It goes beyond and acts as your assistant too.
Help people take actions
What’s in it for Wynk?
We had a ‘why’ we need to build this. The next question we had, was how will we benefit from this?
Be able to support queries in the future via backend integration and little client side effort.
Higher Engagement
Help people understand how to use a finance search engine and how it can improve their experience on Fi
Monetisation
Make people use for more complex and personal queries.
Subscription
Our team was limited to 2 engineers and 1 designer to make something scalable and for a million users.
Distribution Channel
What was not working?
Technology was lagging
We didn’t have the best technology to understand complex user queries and deliver is quickly. This made certain experiences sub-par and affected the trust people have in the feature.
Technology was lagging
We didn’t have the best technology to understand complex user queries and deliver is quickly. This made certain experiences sub-par and affected the trust people have in the feature.
Technology was lagging
We didn’t have the best technology to understand complex user queries and deliver is quickly. This made certain experiences sub-par and affected the trust people have in the feature.
Summary Card
Improving user experience was imperative as search results were often consumed in a primarily textual manner, making distinctions challenging.
In an ocean of Squarespace sites and Behance portfolios, it can be easy to forget that there are limitless ways to represent your work. Not all of them require custom coding, or even fancy images. In fact, some of the most compelling portfolios we’ve seen use what you could call “off-the-rack” solutions that designers have taken advantage of to bring a fresh perspective to presenting work. Learn more about how four designers pulled together their portfolios.
Not all of them require custom coding, or even fancy images.
Image
Central to this overhaul was the creation of modular templates within the card-based layout, designed to adapt to various answer types and gracefully expand as new skills were incorporated into our search feature. This approach was executed in a way to make new templates entirely from the backend, reducing the need for client-side updates. This helped us increase the speed with which we rolled out new skills.
Modular structure for unlimited combinations for use cases
Image
What was not working?
The team was starkly split between Adobe XD and Sketch. Different designer had their own ways of storing files, getting feedback, prototyping, ideating, etc. Some preferred to get feedback over email while some over Slack. It was difficult as a designer to move from one team to another, and then adopt the new way of working.
We started with an inquiry into all the apps our team used. We found more than dozen apps that people needed to get their work. This was heavily fragmented. We listened to the needs of the designers and tried to capture the essential aspect of their ways of working
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Final Words
For a Version 1, we took satisfaction in this result. We had to skip a few essential steps to tackle the problem due to the ongoing pandemic but we tried to make the best we could off the situation. As we move ahead, there are a few other things we wished to do in the next phase of the project.
Vernacular
There was a demand for content in regional languages. Having more content in different language could remove the entry barrier that English poses for so many people.
Richer management features
The next step in the maturity cycle of a listener would be exercising more control over the shows they follow. We want the users to be able to follow, set alerts, bookmark, even take notes, among other things.
Inspect the journeys
Having only conducted tests with a small group of people, we did not have the clearest picture of how well the user journeys were. We'd need time to observe how a user evolves over time while using the app and how the usage pattern changes.
5
Impact
The launch of podcast was a big success on Wynk. Over 12 million users, a significant chunk of our base listens to podcasts. Over the next few weeks, listeners consumed more and more shows. The average podcast listener spent more time on the platform versus a music listener.
Increase in stream-time versus music
38%
Increase in stream-time versus music
38%
Increase in stream-time versus music
38%
Increase in stream-time versus music
38%
Learnings from the project
The pandemic had just hit us and none of us had any idea how to execute our first large scale project. This was an exercise in collaboration and communication. The 3 months we spent to deliver the project allowed me to experiment with our (non-existent) design process and seek out early feedback. All to make the final product the best it could be.
Test quickly
Figma was a blessing here. We tested multiple flows and screen variations to get as much feedback as possible. This helped our design decisions immensely.
Scaling a product
Different content forms need different interaction patterns. Seeing how we could mould our exisiting designs to meet our new needs.
Metrics and personas
We were not a metrics or research driven team. This project allowed us change that approach it in a new way. This certainly helped us cement our rationale better and see the impact of our work.
