CLINK

BYND RECT I (25/26)

BFA Design

Discover BYND RECT I

Outline

CLINK is a gamified, AI-powered finance app designed to help young adults aged 18–25 build healthier financial habits. It simplifies saving and investing by turning financial actions into interactive experiences, addressing common challenges like low financial literacy, lack of motivation, and the intimidation of traditional finance tools.

Team: Alt+Tab

Story

Clink began with a simple question: What if managing money felt supportive and playful instead of stressful and intimidating?

As students living in NYC, we all experienced the same reality—funds running low, uncertainty about spending, and difficulty building consistent financial habits. These shared challenges revealed a larger problem: young adults want to manage their money better, but traditional finance tools often feel overwhelming and inaccessible.

Clink was created to address this gap.

Clink began as a gamified finance app centered around a Tamagotchi-like avatar that grew over time as users saved. As the avatar reached certain milestones, it would “pop,” rewarding users with cashback and turning financial progress into something tangible and rewarding. This playful system helped users visualize their efforts and made saving feel engaging rather than intimidating.

As users returned and habits began to form, Clink evolved alongside them. Gamification expanded with levels, streaks, and rewards that encouraged consistency and celebrated small wins. Over time, user feedback made it clear that motivation alone wasn’t enough—users wanted deeper support that would make the app truly essential to their financial lives.

This insight led to the introduction of AI-powered investing. The AI added a supportive layer that offered personalized tips, explained financial concepts in approachable language, and guided users forward based on their comfort level and behavior. By doing so, Clink shifted from simply motivating good habits to actively supporting smarter financial decisions.

Over time, Clink grew beyond saving to include investing, framing it as a natural next step rather than a daunting leap. These features unlocked gradually, supported by AI that adapted as users’ confidence increased. What emerged was more than a finance app—it became a journey. Clink tells a story of growth, where small actions compound into lasting change, guided by play, technology, and trust.

What We Did

Strategy
There are countless financial tools out there, yet most people still struggle to save or invest consistently. Through research, we identified a fundamental issue: most financial apps fail to motivate users over time. Their interfaces are overly complex, and missing even a single expense log often triggers guilt. Also, investing apps feel so intimidating that many people never even take the first step.
Clink changes it by turning saving and investing into a gamified experience. Saving feels like a game, progress is visible and rewarding, and investing is guided by an AI character that offers clear, friendly support at every step. By transforming financial growth into an interactive, playful experience, Clink helps users build better habits without pressure or guilt. Less pressure. More motivation. Saving and investing, made simple — and fun.
User Research
We conducted weekly concierge treatments with 2–3 users to design and refine a reward system, which generated strong positive feedback in motivating users to save. In parallel, we ran focus groups that surfaced both positive and negative insights, helping us iterate on features, validate assumptions, and clearly shape the app’s overall direction.
Target Audience
Clink’s target audience is young adults aged 18–25 who are beginning to manage their finances independently. This includes students, recent graduates, and early-career individuals who may feel overwhelmed by traditional finance tools and lack confidence or experience with saving and investing.
Design
We selected an 8-bit design aesthetic to resonate with our younger target audience while intentionally softening the intimidation often associated with financial tools.
Branding
Developed Clink’s friendly, approachable tone through conversational copy, a gamified avatar system, and a visually simple interface. We selected arcade-game visuals that align with our pixel-game concept, along with a pixelated typeface to reinforce the retro aesthetic. For the color palette, we chose neon lemon, green, and black to create a more eye-catching and conceptual UI. Our AI Character, Baby Duck, was designed to make saving and investing feel more playful, intuitive, and game-like for users. This round, charming character accompanies you throughout your financial journey.
UI Design
The UI design of Clink focuses on playness, motivation, and emotional engagement to reduce the intimidation often associated with finance apps. Interactive elements such as progress indicators, animated feedback, and avatar growth help users visualize their savings journey and feel a sense of achievement.The dashboard presents essential information—budget status, rewards, and insights—in a digestible and encouraging way, while color and motion are used intentionally to reinforce positive actions without overwhelming the user.
Presentation
The final experience synthesized our semester-long research, iterative design, and feature development into a cohesive product, earning strong positive feedback from the judges and validating our design direction.

Media

A black, video-game-inspired layout frames three iPhone mockups. The left screen shows a green pixel character named ‘Baby duck’ with progress stats (‘Weekly Goal 60%’ and ‘Best Score $90/week’) and navigation tabs. The middle screen is titled ‘Weekly Mission’ with a pixel coin graphic and a list of missions (e.g., plan a free meet-up, skip cafés, save $5 a day). The right screen shows an ‘Overview’ dashboard with a weekly bar chart and a spending breakdown by category. Pixel coins, hearts, and arcade-style labels decorate the corners of the image.

This is our analysis chart. Users can observe basic market charts and track the results of their financial decisions over time. The goal isn’t speculation, but learning long-term patience, steady contributions, and the value of compounding.

This image highlights Clink’s AI investment guidance in a pixel-game UI. The left phone shows a chat-based entry with suggested questions, while the right phone presents an “Invest with AI” result view with timeframe tabs, a pixel progress indicator, and a clear portfolio recommendation (e.g., 80% S&P 500 / 20% bonds), supported by balance info and bottom navigation.

This image compares Clink’s chat-driven advice across two flows: the left screen (“Investment advice”) offers guided prompt suggestions, and the right screen (“Saving advices”) shows a structured, actionable response (e.g., percentage-based budgeting with a weekly breakdown). The dark UI, pixel icons, and neon outlines keep the style consistent and the hierarchy clear.