introduction details body

Building Financial Literacy

Roles
  • Lead Developer
Company/Client
  • CUNA,
  • Bluecadet
Activities
  • Interaction Design,
  • Experience Design,
  • Development,
  • Natural Language Processing,
  • Game Design

Bluecadet’s innovative approach to promoting financial literacy for the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) featured engaging characters, the Little Guy and the Banker, in a series of interactive games and experiences. The project aimed to educate and engage users on fair banking practices through a playful and technology-driven design.

The Client

The Credit Union National Association (CUNA) is the premier national trade association advocating for America’s credit unions, representing the interests of over 5,000 credit unions and their 130 million members. With a mission to support and advance the credit union movement, CUNA plays a crucial role in ensuring the growth and success of these member-focused financial cooperatives.

Characterization of Financial Concepts

The campaign featured two contrasting characters: the Little Guy, representing the virtues of financial planning, transparency, and fairness, and his nemesis, the Banker, symbolizing the opposite traits.

Look Out for the Little Guy

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Gamification with Find the Little Guy

A gamified element was introduced with CUNA’s own version of Flat Stanley: a “Find the Little Guy” challenge, where users guessed the location of a life-sized cutout of the Little Guy in different places around Washington D.C. Successful participants were entered into a lottery for CUNA merchandise.
Users could download their customized Little Guy creations as desktop wallpapers, share them on Facebook, or send them via email, enhancing the campaign’s reach and engagement.

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The Little Guy's Advocate Role

The Little Guy was designed as a relatable everyman figure, advocating for fair banking. Users could engage with this character by dressing him up in various outfits and scenarios, making the experience personalized and interactive.

Look Out for the Little Guy

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Technical Execution and Challenges

The project involved mapping out the experience and creating assets with an illustrator. A significant technical challenge was managing security issues related to downloading images from the Flash player, a feature then new to Flash technology.

Ask the Banker Interactive

This interactive tool allowed users to ask the Banker any question, receiving obnoxious yet relevant responses. The experience was powered by a custom language recognition program that parsed user inputs and matched them with appropriate responses from a database of over three hundred video clips.

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Technology Behind the Interaction

The key technology challenge involved creating a language recognition program that could accurately interpret user questions and provide varied responses, ensuring a fresh experience with each interaction.

The Outcome

The outcome was an engaging and interactive campaign that used humor and technology to educate users on financial literacy. The combination of the Ask the Banker tool and the interactive Little Guy experiences provided a fun and informative way to learn about fair banking practices.

The Lesson

This case study demonstrates how Bluecadet effectively used character-driven storytelling and interactive technology to create an educational campaign on financial literacy, making complex concepts accessible and engaging to a wider audience.

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