Product design strategy for an AI-powered ethical finance venture

The engagement with Incycle was comprehensive from day one. A technically and business savvy start-up that understood the power of bringing a strategic design and innovation partner to help give shape to its business and its primary product offering.

To design great products you need connected organisations, and connected organisations are aligned through shared mission, values and goals. Our Strategic Design team brought together everyone at Incycle to define team success parameters and the values they wanted to guide the business and product strategy.

A number of intensive off-site workshops allowed the team to discuss openly how they wanted to frame the use of their technology as well unpack broader topics on the ethics of building and AI-based product.

The team set two principles at the heart of their product development: create a high level of transparency and be guided by a strong ethical framework that supported businesses without taking advantage of them, in their hour of need.

To discover customers’ needs, we conducted interviews and surveys with multiple small business owners at different stages of the business journey, including those that had ‘failed’ but had gone to find success with new ventures. Through these interviews we identified a number of interrelated challenges. Money, mental health issues and feelings of guilt, were both cause and effect.

We established several co-design workshops with stakeholders and customers, to define what a desirable product would feel like and deep dive into what tools and functionality would have the most impact on the challenges SME owners faced.

As well as a simple, intuitive product that took care of the core functions, SMEs wanted a holistic and personal experience. One that could help with financial education and mental health support.

The insights captured helped form all aspects of the project and were crucial in both confirming and challenging stakeholders’ priorities.

In an industry that’s not known for its focus on the end user, the team wanted to prioritise the friendly and human aspect of the product.

The brand mark itself needed to reinforce the meaning captured in such a simple name. That a business that remains "in cycle" with its cash-flow is a happy business, in more ways than one.

The representation of the brand goals are well conveyed in a pure circle, cut in two, to convey the ever-forward intensity of business life and the essence of support and happiness (with a smile).

Although the colour palette straddled the line between conservative and modern, it served as the perfect backdrop to friendly and welcoming illustrations and the attractive yet understated Neuzeit Grotesk from the URW type Foundry.

The team developed low fidelity prototypes that conceptualised and packaged product features in numerous ways. The prototypes were shaped by insights and brand, yet guided by overall company values. The UX designers wanted the product experience to personify the core essence of Incycle as an organisation: transparent, respectful and supportive.

Transparency in particular, bought a number of challenges into the mix for the UX design team. Interactions needed to strike a balance between simplicity, engagement and being transparent. To navigate this, developers and engineers were heavily involved in the UX design sprints and were inspired to build and package certain product functionality to optimise user understanding and insight at every touchpoint.

Although the product’s MVP did not include a mobile app, all experiments UX prototypes and user testing was conducted with a mobile-first mindset to help keep the build and conversations with stakeholders and customers focused on the most relevant activity and information.

Prime Motive has helped the Incycle team build a groundbreaking product which has been welcomed by financial institutions and professionals. Its accolades have been drawn both for its world-class design and experience as well as for delivering a support program for its customers, far beyond transparent financial management.

Since completing a close beta launch the product has attracted interest from a number of national and international financial institutions, including Macquarie Bank and Commonwealth Bank. The Incycle team are now taking steps towards becoming an official partner of Xero accounting software.