Designing a finance app for broke college students
Why we threw out every convention from banking apps and built something that feels closer to Duolingo than to a ledger.
Riya Bhatt
Design Lead
When we started SpendWise, the brief was simple: 'don't make it look like Yono.' Banking apps are designed for 35-year-old account managers. We had to design for 19-year-olds who are tracking ₹40 chai expenses.
Three design rules
- Sub-5-second flows for everything frequent. Every extra tap is a tax on habit formation.
- Dark by default. Students live on their phones at night and bright UIs are jarring.
- Gamification, but not patronizing. Real milestones, not vanity counters.
Color & feel
Our palette is deliberately closer to a music app than a finance app. Deep navy backgrounds, electric purple primary, mint green for positive states. Every accent is high-contrast on dark — never beige, never corporate.
The badge system
We have 16 badges, each tied to a real behavior. 'Week Warrior' for 7-day streaks. 'Budget Keeper' for staying under-limit. 'Wealth Architect' for the elite few. They're rare on purpose — easy badges feel like spam.