I mentioned before that I like the idea of working with money for this project, I still think thats the avenue I wish to explore.
Whilst working with money is a more focused approach, it still is quite vague. There are many types of financial products so I need to find out which particular product I want to create.
Banking products are an interesting space when it comes to micro interactions. There's a lot of natural opportunity there, confirmations, loading states, transfers completing, spending summaries, moments where a well placed animation could genuinely add to the experience rather than just sit on top of it. The problem is I spent an entire semester last year building one, so at this point I feel like I've already pulled a lot out of that space. Going back to it feels like retreading ground rather than exploring something new, and part of what I want from this project is to push into territory I haven't covered before. It's not that banking isn't valid, it just doesn't excite me the way it might have previously.
Investing is a space I've actually been pretty involved in personally over the last year, which makes it feel like a much more natural fit for this project. That personal connection matters, I think you design better when you genuinely understand the context you're working in. There's also just a lot of potential here. Investing apps are full of moments where animation and micro interactions can do real work: portfolio changes, price movements, trade confirmations, onboarding flows. These aren't decorative opportunities, they're functional ones, which feels more aligned with what I want to explore.
When I was doing my micro interaction analysis, Robinhood stood out quite a bit. Specifically the way they handle data visualisation, there's a real consideration for how crucial financial information gets presented, and the motion around it feels purposeful rather than decorative. For an app dealing with someone's actual money, that balance is really important to get right. It's one of those cases where the animation isn't just nice to look at, it's actively helping the user understand what they're looking at. That's the kind of thing I want to dig into further.
Budgeting is an interesting one because I've technically already touched on it. My dashboard project covered a bit of everything and budgeting was part of that, so it doesn't feel like completely new ground. That said, I do think it's a more interesting avenue than straight up banking, it's more personal, more day to day, and there's more emotional weight to it which gives animation and micro interactions more to actually respond to.
The thing that keeps putting me off though is how budgeting apps tend to look and feel. There's a certain aesthetic that follows the category around, bright colours, playful illustrations, savings goals with little progress bars, and it ends up feeling quite juvenile. I want to make something that feels genuinely professional and considered, and I'm not sure budgeting gives me the right canvas for that. It's not impossible, but it would take a lot of deliberate effort to push it away from that template and into something that feels mature. Right now it feels like a restriction more than an opportunity.
Payment apps are an interesting case in the UK specifically because they've largely been made redundant before they ever really took off. Most digital banking products already let you send money between people instantly, so a standalone payment app doesn't have the same necessity here that it does somewhere like the US where Cash App and Venmo genuinely fill a gap. That context makes it a hard sell as a product concept, it's difficult to design something compelling when the core premise feels a little pointless to the audience you know best.
That said, the Cash App talk I referenced earlier was probably one of the bigger pushes I've had towards exploring financial products in general. Even if a payment app isn't the direction I end up going, looking at how Cash App approaches their design feels worthwhile for this project. The way they handle something as transactional as sending money and still make it feel considered and even enjoyable is exactly the kind of thing I want to understand better. There's a lot to take from it even if the product category itself isn't the right fit.