A growing plant. A way to gamify saving.
Overview
I designed PocketWise as a finance-app concept combining savings progress with a growing plant and calendar-led spending preparation. My work covers the concept, onboarding and interface design.
I tried Cleo and Emma and read public reviews. Clear data explanations, onboarding progress and encouraging messages stood out as patterns I wanted to carry into PocketWise.
Calendar-led planning around personal events was missing from the apps I reviewed. I made pre-planning a priority alongside spending summaries and reminders.
The brief focused on onboarding and proactive financial advice. I developed the plant mechanic to give saving progress a visible form: a seed, plant and longer-term tree or forest.
Connection requests ask for trust, so I planned the explanation first. The flow introduces what PocketWise does and why data is needed, then asks about personal context and notification preferences before the proposed bank and calendar connections.
I kept Skip visible alongside the context questions. Labelled choices and radio-button shapes add cues beyond colour, reflecting the accessibility priorities I explored during ideation.
I explained why calendar data would help before offering Apple, Google or manual entry. Help stays available so someone can decide what to share and how.
I used a conversational tone for accepting, adjusting or dismissing advice, showing “Adjust Goal” and “Sounds good”. Contrast, plain language and a supportive tone remain accessibility priorities to evaluate.
I sketched the growth hub and planning views together, linking progress with upcoming expenses. These layouts gave the plant mechanic a place beyond onboarding.
The dashboard brings plant progress, a weekly report and upcoming events into one view. The calendar links example savings suggestions to upcoming events, so the concept supports planning ahead as well as reviewing past spending.
PocketWise brings motivation, event-led planning and visible choices into one interface concept, with a growing plant making saving tangible and calendar-led pre-planning helping people prepare for spending before it happens. The main design thread is explaining a request before asking people to act on it.
The next step is to evaluate whether people understand the suggestions and can continue without connecting a calendar.
From there, the app could develop through a tiered subscription that rewards good financial habits with a reduced fee, deeper AI pre-planning through email and Apple Wallet integration, and a built-in calendar that turns screenshots of bookings and tickets into planned spending automatically.
