In 2025, I enrolled in the UX/UI Design course offered by Pixellab, motivated by the desire to transition into Product Design in a structured, consistent, and meaningful way. After four intensive months — and 96 hours of collaboration with my colleagues — I’m genuinely grateful for the decision I made and for everything this experience has brought into my professional journey.
Guided by our trainer, Diana Dumitrescu, the course equipped me with:
📚 Strong Foundations – Research • UX mindset • Clear problem-solving
🛠️ Design Essentials – Figma • Wireframes • UI essentials
🧠 Critical Thinking – Feedback • Benchmarking • Iteration
🎯 Career Readiness – Portfolio basics • Presenting work • Next steps
🛠️ Design Essentials – Figma • Wireframes • UI essentials
🧠 Critical Thinking – Feedback • Benchmarking • Iteration
🎯 Career Readiness – Portfolio basics • Presenting work • Next steps
With these fundamentals in place, I began working on my final personal project — a hands-on opportunity to apply everything I learned.
The context
Young people lack accessible, modern tools to develop healthy money habits. Traditional banking feels outdated, and most finance apps fail to combine simple money management with social collaboration and financial education. Users need an intuitive way to save – both individually and together – without complexity or friction.
The goal
Design a fintech experience that helps young users:
• Save easily, both solo and in groups
• Stay motivated through clear goals and progress tracking
• Build healthy financial habits through education
• Collaborate transparently and enjoyably
• Navigate money with confidence and minimal stress
• Save easily, both solo and in groups
• Stay motivated through clear goals and progress tracking
• Build healthy financial habits through education
• Collaborate transparently and enjoyably
• Navigate money with confidence and minimal stress
The result
• Research & Benchmarking
• Defining business and user goals
• Focus on specific tool: savings
• A desirable yet professional visual identity
• UX flows for: sign up and sign in process; dashboard called feed; set profile; custom home screen; add bank account; start, define and delete a jar; invite a friend to share a jar with; delete a shared jar; AI assistance; share an educational tip
• Design mini-system foundations
• Wireframes
• Usability-tested prototypes
• Final project presentation
• Defining business and user goals
• Focus on specific tool: savings
• A desirable yet professional visual identity
• UX flows for: sign up and sign in process; dashboard called feed; set profile; custom home screen; add bank account; start, define and delete a jar; invite a friend to share a jar with; delete a shared jar; AI assistance; share an educational tip
• Design mini-system foundations
• Wireframes
• Usability-tested prototypes
• Final project presentation
Methods used
• Competitor analysis: Lunafi, Emma, Plum, Buddy, WalletApp
• Persona creation
• Usability-tested prototypes
• Persona creation
• Usability-tested prototypes
Discoveries
• Users prefer calm, clean interfaces with minimal cognitive load
• Complex financial terms discourage younger users, they want simple language and plain-sight explanations
• Transactions need to be fast, simple, transparent
• Complex financial terms discourage younger users, they want simple language and plain-sight explanations
• Transactions need to be fast, simple, transparent
UX Flows & Wireframes
I mapped key user journeys and explored them using low- and mid-fidelity wireframes. These flows enabled early identification of UX issues, supported multiple design iterations for usability improvement, and helped validate a solid foundation for the product’s navigation before transitioning to visual design.
High-Fidelity Screens
The high-fidelity screens showcase Safee’s consistent visual language, bringing together cohesive interaction patterns and expressive micro-interactions. They demonstrate how the design principles translate into a polished UI — simple yet trustworthy flows, a clear visual hierarchy, deep customization, and playful moments. Together, these screens capture the app’s final look and feel across key experiences, from adding a bank account to saving money with friends and sharing educational tips.
Branding & Visual Direction
Insights:
• Young users appreciate a clean, calm and expressive fintech product.
• Social features such as sharing an educational tip or starting conversations in-app are appreciated.
• Accessibility, usability & consistency first.
• Prototyping early wireframes saves lots of time and makes room for improvements fast.
• Too many options can confuse the user and lead to cognitive load, and eventually abandoning the conversion.
Future improvements:
• Test more on users and get feedback.
• Reduce the flow for adding a bank account to Safee.
• Continue developing fun and flexible saving methods and budget planning.
• Design more intentional expressive interactions and add subtle motion design to reduce anxiety for the users and to make financials cool and responsible.
• Add more deep customisation as a differentiator on the market.
