OOlubukola Akanbi ← Back to work
Mobile App · Financial Inclusion · 2020

Traveling Money — budgeting designed for trust and dignity.

For many undocumented immigrants, budgeting feels complicated, time-consuming, and stressful — compounded by language barriers and real fears about digital privacy. Traveling Money is a concept app that reimagines budgeting for this community, grounded in research into how they actually think, feel, and perceive technology.

Project

Traveling Money (team project)

Year

2020

Role

UX researcher & designer

Methods

User personas, literature synthesis

The challenge

Budgeting shouldn't be a barrier to building a life.

Undocumented immigrants face a plethora of challenges — and managing money is one of the most persistent. Poor communication options driven by language barriers make budgeting feel complicated, time-consuming, and stressful.

Designing for this community means more than translating an interface. It means understanding their fears, their priorities, and their relationship with technology — then designing something that earns their trust. That's where the research had to start.

Understanding the user

Three lenses on how the community experiences money & tech.

Through user personas and a synthesis of the literature, we built an understanding of undocumented immigrants across three dimensions — each with direct design implications.

Cognitive

Language makes budgeting feel hard

Poor communication options due to language barriers make budgeting a complicated, time-consuming, and stressful process.

Social / Emotional

Family comes first

Through trials and tribulations, family is what matters most — the lens through which money decisions are made.

Perceptual

Convenience vs. privacy risk

There's constant tension between needing a smartphone and the privacy risks that come with the convenience it offers.

Meet the persona

Ana Lopez — designing for a real life, not an average.

We synthesised the research into Ana: a 35-year-old, Spanish-speaking single woman in Ocala, FL, working two jobs and attending weekend ESOL classes. She relies on Google Translate to communicate and wants to break the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle and support her family.

Her motivations — track daily spending, build savings, and have a simple money app in multiple languages — sat right alongside her frustrations: she didn't know how to visualise her income and expenses, and most money apps are English-only. A scenario brought her to life: after being unable to open a bank account due to incomplete documentation, a colleague introduced Ana to Traveling Money, and she began tracking her expenses.

"I want to prioritize important bills before buying pizza." — Ana Lopez

User persona — Ana Lopez
Persona — Ana Lopez
Scenario — Ana discovers Traveling Money
Scenario — how Ana finds the app
Design questions

Four questions that drove every decision.

The characteristics translated into four "how might we" questions — and a design direction for each.

The question we askedHow the design responds
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How will our app address digital privacy concerns?

Privacy-first design — minimise the personal data collected and reassure users their information is protected, easing the convenience-vs-risk tension.

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How will we overcome the language barrier and create a seamless interface?

A visual, low-text interface with clear icons and language support, so the app is usable regardless of English fluency.

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How will we remove the negative conceptions around budgeting and make it simple for those who are unfamiliar?

Simple, guided flows and friendly framing that turn budgeting from a stressful chore into an approachable, everyday task.

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How will we incorporate financial literacy to improve the way undocumented immigrants make money decisions?

Built-in financial-literacy guidance woven into the experience, helping users make more confident money decisions over time.

Approach

Research-led design for a community we couldn't recruit easily.

Reaching undocumented participants directly carries real risk for them. So we grounded the work in personas and a careful synthesis of existing research — letting evidence, not assumptions, define the user.

1

Literature synthesis

Reviewed and synthesised existing research to understand the cognitive, social, and perceptual realities of undocumented immigrants.

2

User personas

Translated the research into personas that kept the team anchored to real needs, fears, and priorities.

3

Framing the questions

Distilled the insights into four guiding "how might we" questions to focus the design.

4

Design solutions

Generated design directions and a prototype concept — Traveling Money — that answer each question.

Designing for a vulnerable, hard-to-reach community means leading with empathy and evidence — and treating privacy and dignity as features, not afterthoughts.

The solution

Traveling Money — budgeting in pictures, not paragraphs.

The prototype turns the four design questions into a real, icon-driven experience. A persistent bottom bar — Budget, Expenses, Send Money — keeps navigation simple, and a language toggle keeps it accessible.

Manage expenses

Ana chooses an expense category — Grocery, Transportation, School — each paired with a clear icon so the app works regardless of reading level or language.

Traveling Money — Manage Expenses screens with icon-based categories
Manage Expenses — icon-based categories

Key design considerations

Two principles drove the screens: icons to visualise each expense option and compensate for language barriers, and simple language for every expense category.

Key design considerations — managing expenses
Managing expenses
Key design considerations — tracking expenses
Tracking expenses

Add an expense

To remove friction, Ana can add an expense two ways — snap a photo of the receipt, or enter it manually (item, price, store) — meeting her wherever she is.

Traveling Money — Add Expenses by photo or manual entry
Add Expenses — by photo or manual entry
Reflection

The takeaway.

Traveling Money shows how thoughtful, evidence-based research can shape technology for people who are too often left out of the design conversation — turning budgeting from a source of stress into a tool for stability.

What I'd do next

The natural next step is to partner with community organisations to safely and ethically test the prototype with real users — validating the privacy approach, the visual interface, and the financial-literacy features with the people they're meant to serve.