A user’s pain point that came from Pepper Personal Loans research discovered that customers liked to “Beat the Clock” when paying back loans. Customers wanted to pay back the loan faster so they could save interest.

The visual identity was to create a trustworthy, simple and fun application that users could trust with their financial information. The colour palette was fresh, vibrant, colourful and bold to communicate important aspects of the mobile application.  An animator Crispe was recruited to create amusing animated vignettes so users could visualise their goals clearly. The images of a savings pig and holiday were to explain the app and to create a sense of playfulness. The characters reassure the user how easy and approachable the application is, with the goal lend a friendly helping hand.

I determined the scope of the project through facilitating collaboration between departments like Treasury, data warehouses, risk, legal, marketing and senior management. I engaged an agency to create the mobile application and recruited animator Crispe. Through this, I formulated a detailed project plan and budget for Coffee or Not.

My design took inspiration from Nir Eyal's Hook Theory which is a four-step process used to hook users and form habits among them. The four parts of the model include trigger, action, investment and variable reward.

• Trigger: This is the spark for a behaviour that gets someone into a system. There are two types of triggers: external and internal. The external trigger alerts users with something like an email, link or icon. Coffee or Not alerts of a decision through a notification at a time that the user has chosen. Internal triggers happen within the system and are formed as a user cycles through successive hooks while using the product.
   

• Action: This is the behaviour taken when a reward is anticipated. For instance, the action of clicking on a Coffee or Not’s animation of a goal. When you click that image, you anticipate that you’ll be taken somewhere interesting. This is an important part of the model because it draws upon usability design to drive users to take action.
   

• Variable Reward: This is the part of the model that allows you to create a craving in users. Rather than using a conventional feedback loop, you can serve up a multitude of potential rewards to hold a user’s interest. In Coffee or Not, there is a different animation of a user’s financial goal that is given randomly in conjunction with verbal congratulations of a decision well made.
   

• Investment: This is the part where the user now has to do some work. Think of it as giving back to the product, and that can take the form of time, data, effort, social capital or money. In Coffee or Not, after the user has made a decision they are given a tally of their progress. This also allows for gamification, as the user is playing against their immediate desire. Further, they are also given data for their progress in saving money.