Financial well-being questionnaire: Helping Americans assess and improve their financial lives
Early journey map: Before the first (paper) version of the scale was released, I created this map to help illustrate to the team some of the pain points and opportunities of the process. This led them to simplify the scoring options.
When people take action to improve their financial lives—and when they get help from others, maybe through a friend, coach, book, or financial services professional—one of the key questions they ask themselves afterward is, “Am I better off than before?” The CFPB developed the Financial Well-Being Scale to help answer that very question.
The challenge:
The CFPB created a definition of financial well-being and then created a scale (that is, a questionnaire and a scoring method) to measure it. This provides a quantifiable way to measure how much a person's financial situation and money choices provide them with security and freedom of choice. The first version of this scale was included in a report and administered by practitioners (such as financial coaches, counselors) to their clients. The challenge was to turn it into a version that could be easily completed by consumers online.
Early online prototype of the questionnaire: This working prototype was created over two days during the CFPB's first hackathon.
The resulting prototype:
- Starts with a ten-question questionnaire: The questions were required to use wording that was identical to the paper version of the quiz, but are now responsive, utilizing similar patterns to other CFPB web projects and conforming to site standards.
- Draws from robust data to help consumers know where they stand: Part of the impetus of this project was to find a consumer-facing way to utilize the data collected from a country-wide pilot study. Based on input from financial coaches and counselors we are exploring two possibilities for doing this. The first is a simple spectrum at the top of the page showing where the consumer's score falls across the possible range of scores. For further comparison, we are also including a histogram to allow people to see how their score compares to others. Upcoming testing will help us determine whether either of these approaches is successful, and help identify ways to refine them.
- Suggests concrete next steps based on individuals' answers: In addition to their score, consumers are provided links to different tools and resources if they want to take action.
My role:
- Collaborating with stakeholder across the CFPB to identify and determine requirements and establish scope of work.
- Mapping the experience of practitioners and their clients with a journey map. This served as a starting point for developing the structure and flow of the online version.
- Creating two interactive prototypes based on user needs. Prototypes adapt for different screen sizes.
- Partnering with user research colleague to define usability testing. (Testing has not occurred yet, but I will capture feedback and work to incorporate it into revisions.)
- Working closely with Agile team including stakeholders, designers and developers.