Cove: A Financial Planning & Literacy Tool
A financial health application that helps users plan and budget their finances while tracking emotions, making financial planning feel less daunting and supporting a healthier approach to financial literacy.
Reward-based financial tracking
Bite-sized financial learning
How to turn finance into everyday knowledge?
Cove’s goal is to addresses the emotional and cognitive barriers young adults face when managing money, including financial anxiety, low confidence, overwhelming finance tools, and difficulty building consistent budgeting habits.
People struggle with money not only because of limited financial knowledge, but also because of financial anxiety, low confidence, and overwhelming financial systems
Secondary research showed that financial learning is shaped by both knowledge and confidence. Barriers such as math anxiety, financial anxiety, low numeracy, and unfamiliar vocabulary can prevent users from acting on financial information.
”I know I should manage my money, but I don’t even know how to start.“
Through interviews with 6 participants and 150+ qualitative data points, we found that users see budgeting as useful but emotionally difficult. Manual tracking feels like a chore, users rely on multiple tools, and financial behavior changes based on income, stress, and life situation.
Young adults face emotional and cognitive barriers in managing finances
How might we create a financial guide that will not only help you tackle financial terms like, and plan your budgets, but adjusts and adapts to you emotional needs?
Cove is driven by a need to connect with users on a deeper level. It embodies values of trust, emotional safety, kindness and adaptability
We explored ideas around automated tracking, beginner-friendly education, financial simulations, AI-guided support, emotional check-ins, and reward-based habit formation.
Cove was designed to feel calm, friendly, and emotionally safe
The brand uses soft visuals, rounded forms, a green-forward color palette, approachable typography, and a supportive mascot to reduce the intimidation often associated with finance.
01 Personalized onboarding & integrated financial management
Reduce manual tracking through personalized goals, learning paths, adaptive tone of voice, and connected accounts for seamless money management.
02 Reward-based financial tracking
Provide transparency and a sense of control through clear dashboards, progress tracking, AI-powered insights, and voice-enabled expense logging for savings, budgeting, and investment goals.
03 Bite-sized financial learning & simulation games
Deliver beginner-friendly financial education through interactive learning, simulations, and positive guidance to build financial confidence.
04 Emotional support & actionable suggestions
Understand users’ emotions through check-ins and provide personalized financial and wellness recommendations to help reduce stress and anxiety.
Successfully create a beginner-friendly and emotionally supportive experience
Testing focused on three key tasks: viewing weekly spending, logging an anxious mood, and finding a quick ETF lesson. Early testing revealed issues with interaction clarity, information hierarchy, mood visualization, navigation feedback, and learning content expectations.
Reflection
By helping users understand both their finances and their emotions, Cove empowers them to build lasting financial confidence and healthier financial habits.