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c. Sanjib Bhagawati, 2026
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Your entire financial life, on one screen.
The home screen is split at the horizon. Above: your tree, your season, your current age in the simulation. Below: roots reaching down into nodes, each one a moment in your financial life, completed or waiting to be played. The tree grows visibly as you progress, branching differently based on every choice you make.
As you age through the simulation, new lesson categories unlock, challenges relevant to where you are in life, not some generic curriculum. An unexpected job loss at 28 teaches different things than a market crash at 45. The simulation occasionally throws curveballs entirely outside your control - emergencies, regulation changes, economic events, because real financial life does too.
Decades of decisions. Days to play through them.
The scenario system is the heart of Roots. Every challenge is a real life-stage situation - your first paycheck, a surprise medical bill, a chance to invest early or spend now. You choose from 3-4 options. Consequences ripple forward through your tree, branching your path differently depending on what you picked.
But you're never locked in. Tap any past node and replay it. Choose differently. Watch your tree branch in a new direction. Play out every possible option before deciding what you'd actually do, which is the whole point. You can live out an entire financial lifetime here, make every mistake safely, and walk away knowing exactly what you'd do when it counts for real.
Be You. Or be someone else first.
Two paths into Roots: Be a Persona - step into a curated financial life (High School Student, Professional, Freelancer, Parent) and explore without any personal pressure. Or Be You - connect your actual bank accounts, loans, investments, and insurance, and the simulation builds scenarios calibrated to your real financial situation.
The more institutions you connect, the more accurate your tree becomes. The app doesn't just teach generic finance, it shows you what your specific choices, at your specific income and debt level, could actually lead to. The persona path exists because research showed users needed a safe on-ramp before they felt ready to confront their own numbers.
Learning that unlocks as you age through the simulation.
As you progress through the simulation and your in-app age advances, new modules unlock in the Learn tab - content that's relevant to the life stage you're in right now, not a static curriculum. Just played through buying your first home? Lessons about mortgages and property tax appear. Hit retirement age? Content about drawdown strategies surfaces.
Every lesson ties back to the specific tree node that made it relevant, so you can always trace what you learned back to the moment you needed it. The glossary, mini-modules, and AI coach all draw from your personal journey.
Shared trees. Synced goals. Generational inheritance.
Play Together lets you share your tree with anyone in your life — a partner, a sibling, a friend. You can sync trees at a common life milestone (say, a shared financial goal at age 28), make decisions together from that point forward, and branch apart later if you choose.
But the deepest version of this is Legacy Mode. Play through an entire lifetime, and you can pass your tree to your children or anyone younger in your life. They inherit it — not as a clean slate, but with the income levels, debts, assets, and consequences of your choices baked into their starting point. It transforms Roots from a personal tool into a generational conversation about money, habits, and what we pass forward.
/Roots
A financial literacy app designed to reduce intimidation and help people build confidence with money over time.
Information Architecture
Visual Design
Design System
Gamification
UX Research
Motion
/Role: Lead Product Designer · Certificate Capstone (UW PCE)
/Timeline: 6 months · 2025
A financial life simulator. For anyone brave enough to play forward.
Most financial apps demand you confront where you are right now - your debt, your deficit, your anxiety. Roots flips that entirely. It lets you simulate decades of financial decisions in days, without the fear of real consequences. Make mistakes, learn from them, go back, try differently, and watch your tree branch in a new direction.
Designed primarily for young people starting their financial journey - students, first-jobbers, early-career professionals, Roots grows with you across a lifetime. Connect your actual bank and financial accounts, and the scenarios become calibrated to your real situation. Play long enough, and you can share your completed tree with your children so they inherit your choices as their starting point.
Primary Audience
16 - 34
Students, first-jobbers & young professionals
Branching life simulation
Core mechanic
Key features designed
Branching life tree
Scenario challenges
Replay any node
Persona system
Curveball events
Learn Together
Goal setting
Legacy / Inheritance Mode
Every choice shapes a different future
“Every financial decision you've ever avoided making? You can make it here first.”
- Core design principle
Understanding why young people avoid thinking about money.
Before writing a single user story, I spent weeks in deep research, structured user interviews, competitive auditing, affinity mapping, and journey mapping with the team. The goal was to understand not just what people wanted, but the emotional barriers that made personal finance feel unapproachable.
Benny Beginner
First job, recent grad
Needs financial literacy
Intimidated by investing
Stressed, overwhelmed
DIY Denise
Mid-career investor
Wants portfolio diversity
Confused by options
Time + info overload
Progress needs to be visible
Abstract numbers don't motivate. Users detach when they can't see themselves improving over time.
Shame is the biggest blocker
Apps that lead with debt or current balance trigger immediate anxiety. Users disengage before they've even started.
Context changes everything
A 16-year-old and a 26-year-old have wildly different realities. Generic content fails both equally.
Safe exploration reduces fear
Users wanted to explore financial decisions without risk. This directly seeded the "Be a Persona" feature.
/Four findings that shaped everything.
I know I should budget, but I don't even know where or how to start.”
“
- Research participant, age 22
These apps throw numbers at me, but they don't explain what to do with them.”
- Research participant, age 26
“
Most apps feel like they're for people who already know everything about money.”
- Research participant, age 34
“
User Interviews
Journey Mapping
Empathy Mapping
Affinity Mapping
Competitive Audit
Usability Testing
Research methods used
/What users told us, directly.
/Competitive Audit
YNAB
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Features
Zogo
Greenlight
Money Masters
Tendi
Bite-sized lessons
Rewards / points
Goal setting
Progress tracking
Habit tracking
Reflection prompts
Peer accountability sharing
From insight to concept.
Research pointed toward three opportunity pillars: Automation, Confidence, and Knowledge. Our team ran structured ideation workshops across four quadrants - Motivation, Literacy, Personalization, and Community, before dot-voting on the most impactful ideas. The winning concept became the philosophical core of Roots.
/The original concept: FinFu → Roots
My ideation concept crystallized around one principle: create challenges based on life situations, and create a future based on the choices made. This became the soul of Roots, every feature flows from this idea.
NOW - Core MVP
Life-stage simulation
Start Fresh / Be You
Challenge gameplay
Persona onboarding
Progress tree
Lighthearted theme
Next - Iteration targets
XP & reward system
Scenario-based explainers
Achievement dashboard
Knowledge bites in challenges
LATER - Expanded scope
AI financial coach
Financial Institution collaboration
High Priority
Low Priority
Low Feasibility
High Feasibility
Life-stage simulation
Start Fresh / Be You
Persona onboarding
Customizable financial attributes
Challenge-based gameplay
Lighthearted theme
Consequences appearing as future challenges
Progress tree
Surprise life events tied to real life unpredictability
AI financial coach
Peer forums / community
Financial expert session / Live Q&A
Leaderboard
Scenario based explainers
Knowledge bites in challenges
XP & reward system
Progress recap / timeline journal
Custom reminders or to-dos
Achievement dashboard
Soft milestone badges
Financial Institution collaboration
/Feature Prioritization
Building the map before the territory.
I mapped the full app sitemap and five distinct user flows - Home Dashboard, Onboarding, Curated Life Experience, Learn, Play Together, and Goal-based Tree Journey. Each flow is self-contained but threads back into the central tree metaphor.
Top Navigation
Bottom Navigation
Curated Life Experience
Full Life Tree
Replay past nodes
Scenario with multiple choices
Learning card for current experience
Bite-sized content (tips, visuals, fun-facts, etc.)
Outcome
Personas
Learn
Current persona details
Recommended for you
Fruits Earned
Profile and stats
Share your trees
Learning from your choices
Milestone Timeline
Settings
Sync your tree with someone
Ask AI
Stored Trees
Legacy Mode: Share your tree to the next generation
View current streak
Past Personas
Next unlockable fruit/item
Start a New Journey
Streak
Play Together
Fruits
Profile
/Sitemap
Home Dashboard
Welcome Screen
Already have an account?
Enter login details (or choose 3rd party login)
Forgot Password
Login unsuccessful
Login successful
Choose your journey
Be a Persona
Be You
Enter financial details manually
Connect with your financial account
Select a persona
Customize persona
Play first experience
/Onboarding user flow
Five stages, two rounds of user feedback.
Reflective. Grounded. Motivating. Safe.
The visual system was built around four emotional qualities. Drawing on organic textures, seasonal forest photography, and Robert Frost - "Oh I marked the first for another day", the moodboard established a relationship with time and growth that felt personal rather than transactional.
/Design system decisions
Logo
Typography
Satoshi
Primary | Headers, Body, Labels
Gelica
Secondary | Display
Primary Colors
Evergreen
#447762
Jonquil
#FFD348
Orange
#F5761A
Lime
#FFFE97
Moonstone
#5AB0C4
Night Sky
#1F3C62
Components
Mist 1
#F6F0E8
Very Dark Green
#162B26
Secondary Colors
/Login Flow
Every decision is a step.
Designed to make real consequences feel safe to explore.
Designed simultaneously,
never ported.
Light mode uses warm cream - sunshine, clouds, daytime growth. Dark mode shifts to deep navy, the tree glowing against a moonlit sky. Both modes were designed from scratch in parallel so every component works natively in both environments.
The complete picture.
/Try it yourself
Sketches
Wirefreames
Concept Testing
Low-Fi Screens
Usability Testing
What the work taught me.
6+
Design iterations across two rounds of real-user testing
20
Features brainstormed, clustered, and prioritized via impact matrix
5
Distinct user flows mapped and designed end-to-end
Simulation beats education.
The most important insight was that people don't learn finance by being taught it, they learn it by experiencing consequences. Designing the simulation loop (choose → ripple → replay) was more valuable than any feature in the Learn tab.
The fear of your own data is a design problem.
The "Be a Persona" path wasn't a shortcut, it was a necessary on-ramp. Research showed that many users couldn't engage with their real finances until they'd practiced on someone else's first. Designing for that fear unlocked genuine engagement.
Generational features change the product's identity.
Legacy Mode shifted Roots from a personal finance app to something more like a family heirloom. Designing features that work across generations, where your choices become someone else's starting point, was the most emotionally resonant design decision in the whole project.
Connection to real data transforms the experience.
The difference between a generic simulation and one calibrated to your actual bank balance, debts, and income is enormous. Designing the bank connection flow to feel safe and optional - not mandatory, while still surfacing its power was one of the most nuanced onboarding challenges.
This is the real thing.
Click around.
Not a walkthrough. Not a video. The full high-fidelity prototype, tap through it the way a real user would. Start somewhere unexpected. See where it takes you.
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