Week 1 - Planning
It was all about collaborating with MassMutual and MIT stakeholders on UX and marketing. We defined project goals, allocated tasks, and set clear timelines for collaboration.
Week 2 - Empathizing
Delving into user-centric aspects. We crafted user personas and initiated our initial research efforts to understand our target audience.
Week 4 - Prototyping
Shaping the user experience and preparing for testing. Conducted usability tests to refine and improve prototypes, enabling us to better inform the final experience.
Putting Ourselves in their shoes - we are talking Emotions
42% Americans do not feel prepared for retirement,
even though an average of 87% believe retirement planning is important. This project hopes to give retirement planning, a hard edged topic, an emotional softness in the experience. The user group that we identify as critical in this topic are young millennial professionals. The goal is to cultivate a hybrid experience that brings hopes, emotions, and empowerment for younger generations to envision a future that is worth investing in early on.
Research and Outreach
We gathered interesting insights amongst people aged 20 - 40yrs at different stages of their professional careers.
We also interviewed “Lifestyle Leaders”. Since 2014, the MIT AgeLab has hosted a research panel of adults aged 85 and older. They shared insights on when, how and why they started investing in retirement but most importantly how it impacted their lives going forward.
48%
Thought 100k-250k was enough for retirement
28%
Did not find 401k retirement plans appealing
45%
Haven’t thought about retirement at all
37.5%
Would want to retire before 55yr
We can’t solve a financial problem about the future, if our audience can’t emphasize with one.
Our Approach and Goals
Rethink the word “Retirement”
Present bite-sized Information
Let’s talk more about feelings, not money
Enable sense of community and social engagement
We can up with a proposed experience to set up a public interactive experience where one could get a picture of themselves clicked, specify the future age, activity and location to then be able to generate a picture of themselves allowing them to think of their future selves.
The Final Setup
Generating aged pictures using AI
We asked candidates for their age of retirement, place of retirement and the activity they would be indulging in. With the responses we gathered, we presented the candidates with an AI generated image of their older selves as polaroids, this inculcated a sense of empathy towards their ender selves and thus prompting an emotional flux towards saving for retirement.
What was learnt and how could we improve?
For us to enhance the kiosk experience, providing more privacy and sparking curiosity among users was considered along with social media engagement. Additionally, we aimed to make investment roadmaps relatable, facilitating quick actions on the website without the need for direct engagement with a financial advisor. Furthermore, we wanted to anchor future returns in everyday commodities, making investment decisions more accessible and comprehensible to our audience.