The Behavioral Insights IFC is a field-method course in which students work with a real client from the UK government to design interventions inspired by behavioral science. Our team was tasked to create a digital solution to help young, low-income individuals in the UK increase their rainy day (emergency) savings. The need stems from the fact that nearly three-quarters of UK households will experience a major unexpected expense. At the same time, more than half of UK adults had less than the suggested emergency savings of £1,000. Over the course of the fall semester leading up to the immersion our team conducted research by reading over 750 pages of interviews with subject matter experts in journal articles, academic papers, books, and other literature.

In January 2017, our team spent ten days working with BI Ventures to design a "rainy day savings" intervention plan. The following photos showcase a user field testing conducted by our team in Broxton, London where we tested four behaviorally-informed prototypes with fifty low-income users. Members of our team were designated as photographers and note-takers and focused on capturing emotions, spontaneous reactions, and direct quotes. We learned this was key to gathering insights that would later help us ideate on the product design!

The rainy day savings team ready to embark on a field research in Brixton.

That’s me conducting qualitative interviews on savings patterns in Brixton.

My teammates Kim and Sana drafting the first prototype of our savings mobile app.