GameFi
GameFi is a playable bank account that allows users to grow real world wealth while building a virtual city using addictive mechanisms that encourage users to compulsively save.
“Our mission is to provide pleasure for a purpose. We reject the notion that instant gratification must come at the cost of long-term satisfaction” - GameFi
August - December 2021
Project Timeline
Consultant
Role
Mobile web design
Project Type
Figma, UX Research, Market Research, UI Design, Data Visualization, Prototyping, Cross-team Collaboration, Feature Development in Social Healthy Competition and Financial Education
My Impact
How Might We most effectively identify and design for the intersection between gaming and finance to optimize hedonism into financial wellbeing for our users
User Persona
The target audience for Oculo are data minded, health conscious professionals between the ages of 18-35 who seek new and holistic brain health oriented metrics to stay informed about their performance, recovery, and health.
Research
Our team conducted user surveys and interviews with diverse audiences to understand saving and spending habits of our users, identify need for intersection between finance and gaming in target audience, and understand how to optimize GameFi for target audience.
User Interview
Our Insights
The older target audience for mindless games is more financially knowledgeable, while younger users tend to worry about weekly spending, often driven by impulsive purchases on non-essentials like food, clothes, and hobbies.
Younger users feel pressured to save for the future (e.g., retirement, careers) and experience guilt about spending unearned money, leading them to rely on family or professionals for financial management.
All users use bank apps to track spending, enjoy mindless games as a distraction from busy lives, and lack familiarity with cryptocurrency or investments, though they are interested in learning more.
Based on our user research, we identified 5 opportunity spaces to explore for better user retention and benefit: Engagement, Gameplay, Social, Finance, Simplification.
Ideation and
Opportunity Spaces
Information Hierarchy
Gameplay
Simplification
GameFi
Remove some unnecessary concepts
Simple layout of savings / account
Finance
Splurge Card
tips for beginners
tutorial/starting page
Social
Leaderboards
Opportunities to invite outside users to the app
Friends and chat
Engagement
Goal setting
notification/alarm
widget
learn section/crash course
Friends + Family
weekly transaction page breakdown
money won in game is set aside
from user’s account to save
Boost at certain periods
Rewards at certain periods
daily check in bonus
Limited capacity
bonus for week/month/year if consistent
API burn card connection
Interface offers financial advice
Competitions between all users
Competitions between friends and all users
friendly competition
short mini games
Animation “grind”
In-app “spending”
mini game
High Fidelity Prototypes
These are the proposed changes that we presented to our client and implemented into our design prototypes:
Splurge functionality - allowing users to spend with a burner card to keep money within GameFi instead of users withdrawing back to other bank accounts supporting GameFi monetization strategy
Goal setting for incentives and positive reinforcement as well as financial progress
Implement daily, weekly, to monthly bonuses and rewards for user retention
Community - healthy competitions with friends to spend more time on the platform with scoreboards and virtual coins gained
Simplify gameplay and remove unnecessary game features
Next Steps
If our team had more time, we would conduct usability testing to measure the impact of our proposed designs. We also would implement financial education feature that would teach users how to manage their finances.