Buckkit

Collection
Design Strategy (MBA) | Design Division

Course
Fall 2014Innovation StudioLisa K. SolomonDSMBA-600-1A
Final project
Student(s)
Whitney Bush, Lisa Bloomquist, Ryan Hoffman, Ismar Mahtmutovic, Ali Draudt
Description
Buckkit is a real-time indicator for web browsers that empowers users to set goals and equips them with instant information to make sound spending and saving decisions while shopping online.

Buckkit is a web browser extension designed primarily for Millenials, as they face 
challenges in managing their ongoing finances.  Specifically, we uncovered through 
dozens of interviews with these consumers that they:

1) Save backwards – they spend what they have to and what they want to now, figuring 
they will save what they have leftover.

2) Find financial check-ins stressful, as they often find that they don’t have as much, if 
anything, left to save once they have finished spending for the short term.

3) Encounter the biggest impulse-spend pitfall while shopping online – it’s tempting and 
easy to click and make a purchase without thinking about longer-term trade-offs.

Buckkit helps address these three issues by facilitating savings goals before spending 
begins and providing a visual indicator of progress versus those goals within users’ web 
browsers:

1) Users first set up their goals for the money that remains after necessities (i.e. rent, 
bills) and automatic long-term savings are paid, designating an amount and a time 
frame for saving toward each goal.  Each user may have a few different goals, for 
instance saving $400 for 3 months before holiday shopping, $1000 for 6 months for a 
new laptop, and $1500 for 9 months before a planned trip.  

2) Once their goals are set, users will see an indicator color in their browser toolbars 
while shopping online, which tells them whether or not they can afford the item(s) in 
their shopping cart while staying on track for their goals.  Green means go ahead – 
you are budgeted to cover the purchase, Yellow indicates that you are short on funds 
allocated – some money will have to be taken from goals to cover the purchase if you 
choose to go ahead with it, Red means that all spending money has been used and 
the purchase will pull entirely from goals if you make it, and Black indicates that the 
only way to cover the purchase is via credit card debt (all money allocated to both 
goals and short-term spending has already been used).  By clicking on the indicator, 
users can see the details behind the color, including their current progress toward 
goals.

Buckkit provides an empowering way for users to know how their spending will impact their 
saving goals at the moment of purchase consideration, rather than after the damage has 
been done.  It meets Millennials at their pain point of impulsive online spending and instills 
a natural self-check that feels helpful without becoming intrusive or shaming.  Ultimately, 
users of Buckkit stand to benefit from the peace of mind that comes from being able to 
spend on important experiences both now and into the future.

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