RBC myfinance Tracker Expense Analysis

Transcription

1 RBC myfinance Tracker Expense Analysis EECE 418 Preproposal Adam Berg - # [email protected] 1. Description The myfinancetracker TM is an online money management tool for RBC Online Banking customers. The tool automatically tracks spending, organizes financial data and calculates important information for customers. There are several components to the application, but this report will focus on the Expense Analysis portion of the application. The main interface can be seen in Figure 1. Figure 1: Expense Analysis Interface

2 2. Analysis 2.1 Functionality The expense analysis tool helps the user keep track of the expenses by automatically categorizing purchases into categories, such as Rent, Groceries, Education. The user is presented with a pie chart of the amount of spending in each category, as well as a table listing the categories and their corresponding percentage of the user's total expenses. Below the chart, the user can view an itemized list of transactions. The interface provides several features for searching through transactions, as well as the ability to split transaction between categories, add notes, and add transaction classes for each purchase. 2.3 Stakeholders The myfinancetracker TM application is available only to RBC customers. Therefore the current users of the system are RBC customers interested in keeping track of the expenses. The system helps users manage their money by tracking income and expenses. 2.4 Requirements Access to the application requires an Internet connection. Since the application deals with sensitive banking information it also requires an HTTPS connection to encrypt data. There could be significant consequences if the application did not provide accurate results, and as such it must be developed in a way to avoid these problems. Finally, since the main application runs within a browser it must be developed to work consistently across major browser. 2.5 Usability and User Experience Goals A user should be able to easily sort through their past transactions. More advanced features should be easy to find and intuitive to learn. The interface should provide clues about the system so that the user can create a mental model that helps them understand the system. The interface should be simple enough for a casual banking user to learn, while still offering enough features for more advanced user to take control of their expenses. The final point is the most important, because if the interface is too complex, it will not be used by a majority of RBC customers and if the functionality is too basic, certain customers may look to other application or banks for more control Questions 1. Can a user correctly enter a date frame and view the results within 20 seconds? 2. Can a user correctly identify what certain icons will do when pressed? 3. Can a user identify the purpose of all the properties on transactions? 2.7 Three Problems Date Entry The date entry for retrieving expenses between a range of dates is quite confusing. The date entry is located to the left of the red 3 in Figure 1. The interface provides common options such as this month and the last month, but also provides inputs for From and To fields. At first it appears that the user must type in the dates into the fields, since clicking the fields doesn't open up a calendar to select a date range. This is confusing because it is unclear what date format is expected. Ultimately

3 these fields are useless, because the calendar button next to them must be used to enter a date range, however this widget presents even more problems. Once a date range is selected the user must press the Update button in order to see the results. Additionally, there is a reset button which appears to remove any selected range, preventing the user from going to their previous range Icons The expense analysis widget contains primarily links and buttons, but uses 3 small icons for a few features. The positioning of these icons, as well as their images make it difficult for the user to identify their purposes. The icons can be found next to the red 2 and 3 in Figure Transaction Properties Within a transaction, the user can change the description, category, or note attached to the transaction. The user can also select from one of four tags, Business, Tax Deductible, Medical, Reimbursable, to attach to the transaction. The existence of these tags is somewhat understandable, however there is no identifiable way to use this information. If someone wanted to view all of their Tax Deductible transactions, they would have to manually access each entry to see if they flagged it as Tax Deductible. The Edit transaction interface can be seen int Figure 2 below. Figure 2: Edit Transaction Popup 3.0 Improving the Interface The following sections provide possible improvements to the problems presented above. 3.1 Date Entry To address the date format confusion, the fields should display human readable dates, such as Jan. 10, These fields should also be automatically populated with the current date range filter (which appears to default to last 3 months). Upon clicking the From or To field, a calendar should appear to select a date for the respective field. The current design uses one calendar for both the From and To fields, meaning that the user has to remember whether they are currently selecting a from or to date. The final improvement suggestion would be to automatically update the interface whenever a new date range is selected so that the Reset and Update buttons can be removed completely.

4 Ideally, the interface would be updated using an AJAX call so that the user isn't forced to wait for the page to reload each time they select a new range. 3.2 Icons The three icons used for the expense analysis application include a pie chart icon (to hide or show the pie chart widget), tables icon (to hide or show the list of transactions), and a calendar icon (to present the calendar widget for selecting a range of dates). Based on the positioning of the pie chart and tables icon, it is very difficult to see what elements will be affected when pressing the buttons. The user must try the buttons and look to see what on the page has changed, because the icons are too far from the elements they affect. Additionally, the rest of the interface relies on + and - dropdowns to hide or reveal sections. The transactions section already has a - button to hide the information (See red #4 in Figure 1), so the tables icon provides redundant functionality. By adding a similar button to the pie chart widget, both of these icons can be removed. With the discussed changes in 3.1, the calendar icon also serves no purpose and can be removed. 3.3 Transaction Properties The interface provides several hints as to how transactions and categories work with the expense analysis application. From these clues, the user can form a mental model to help identify how these properties are used within the expense analysis application. The tags that can be applied to transactions should follow a similar model as the categories. This means that a user should be able to sort through and view transactions based on tags they have assigned. Within the list of transactions, the tags attached to a transaction could be listed below the description. This gives the user immediate feedback that the tag has been applied to the transaction, and makes it visible for future visits. The search options at the top of the application should also be modified to allow the user to include or exclude results based on the tag. Currently the interface allows the user to select which accounts to include, which categories, and which options to include. The options label is ambiguous and contains one option for including or excluding Business expenses. This option is based on whether the transaction has the Business tag or not. The Options label should be changed to Tags and the options should be updated to include all possible tags. 3.4 Cost Estimate All the above improvements focus primarily on the front-end of the application, though searching by tag likely requires a little bit of work from a back-end developer. Using an average hourly contractor wage of $50 for both a back-end and front-end developer (from ) the total cost estimate is: Total for solution 1: (8 hours * $50 / hour) = $400 Total for solution 2: (2 hours * $50 / hour) = $100 Total for solution 3: (8 hours * $50 / hour) = $400 Total estimated cost: $400 + $100 + $400 = $900

5 EECE418& Assignment&1:&Self&Assessment&Report& Name:& Adam Berg & & & & Student&#:& Date:& Note:& each& element& must& have& a& justification;& otherwise& it& will& be& assumed& Strongly& disagree.& If& additional& space& is& needed& for& a& justification,& use& a& separate&page&and&label&justification&with&the&assessment January 19, 2015 Assessment 1=Stronglydisagree; 2=Disagree; 3=Neutral; 4=Agree; 5=StronglyAgree n/a=notapplicable. 1. Titlepageincludesallelements n/a Justification: The title page contains the interface name, my name, my , and a picture of myself. 2. Theprimaryfunctionalityoftheinterface isdescribedwell. Justification: 3. Howeachfunctionisaccessedis describedclearly. Justification: The primary function of the interface are described. How functions are accessed aren't directly described. Though the first figure shows how to access them n/a n/a 1

6 4. Alltherelevantstakeholdersare identified. Justification: Relevant stakeholders are identified. 5. Theimpactoftheinterfaceoneach stakeholderisdescribedwell. Justification: The impact on stakeholders is described. 6. Thefunctionalrequirementsfromthe users pointofviewareidentifiedwell. Justification: The functional requirements are identified. 7. Thenonfunctionalrequirementsfromthe users pointofviewareidentifiedwell. Justification: Non functional requirements are presented. 8. Constraintsonthesystemrelatedtothe userexperienceareclearlydescribed. Justification: The constraints are more implied than described. 9. Thelistofusabilityanduserexperience goalsisclearlyarticulated. Justification: The list of goals is clearly presented n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 2

7 10. Theprioritiesassignedtotheitemsinthe listofusability/userexperiencegoalsare n/a welljustified. Justification: The priorities are well justified. 11. Fromtheprioritizedlistofgoals,three mainusabilityanduserexperience n/a questionsareidentified. Justification: Three questions are identified based on the list of goals. 12. Foreachusabilityanduserexperience questionidentified,theperformanceof n/a thecurrentsystemiswellanalysedand documented. Justification: The performance of the current system is only implied by identifying the problems. 13. Thelistofgoalshaveobjectifable measuresforevaluatingtheuser n/a interface. Justification: The goals have objectifable measures. 14. Threesignificantproblemswiththe interfacehavebeenidentified n/a Justification: Three significant problems are identified. 15. Alltheproblemsidentifiedarerelatedto theuserexperience. Justification: All the problems are related to the user experience n/a 3

8 16. Noneoftheproblemsidentifiedare technicalissues. Justification: None of the problems identified are technical issues. 17. Noneoftheproblemsidentifiedare nice tohave features. Justification: 18. Threepossiblesolutionsareclearly identified. Justification: Three solutions are clearly identified. 19. Foreachproblem,thesolutionpresented iswellthoughtoutanddescribedhowit solvestheproblem. Justification: Each solution is well thought out and described. 20. Thebudgetcapturesthemaincosts associatedwitheachsolution. Justification: large corporation like RBC. 21. Thebudgetdoesn tmissanyobvious costs. Justification: Some of the problems could be identified as "nice to have" though they are mostly user experience problems. The budget captures the main costs of programming time, but is likely missing other administrative costs for a There are potentially missing obvious costs n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a 4

9 22. Thebudgetdoesn thaveanyirrelevant costs. Justification: There are no irrelevant costs. 23. Thefiguresinthebudgetarewelljustified fromreliablesources. Justification: The hourly wages come from the suggested source. 24. Thepresentationofthereportiseasyto read. Justification: The report is separated into sections to make it easier to read. 25. Therearenogrammarorspellingerrors inthereport. Justification: There are no grammar or spelling errors. 26. Materialovertherecommended3pages (i.e.appendices,tables,figures,text)is welljustified. Justification: Two figures push the material to 4 pages, but help the reader picture the interface n/a n/a n/a n/a n/a Comments:& 5