I’ve been an investor in this app for some time now and the main reason was due to Emma’s ease of use and how well it organised my spending. After all, it was a budgeting app and it really helped me immensely with clear insight into my outgoings.
However, it seems like this app is now trying to cash in on the current craze of retail investing hype and quick payments. This app should be, first and foremost, a budgeting app - after all even its App Store title is “Emma - Budget Planner Tracker”.
Why is the budgeting feature reduced to a tiny icon on the top right of the screen?
And why is “Invest” and “Pay” taking centre stage as one of the 4 main options at the bottom?
There are already plenty of other investing and payment apps available - some which are much better than Emma as that’s their main focus. I’m not saying that Emma shouldn’t venture into those territory, by all means do, however please don’t put aside and ignore what made this app good in the first place, what made me invest my money into this company, a simple to use and very informative budgeting app!
P.s. I’m sure there are others with the same feeling as myself and going by what others are saying in other threads, they are simply being ignored and their threads getting closed for no reason. I hope the admins don’t do the same to this as we all want what’s best for Emma.
The app is not changing much, we are just expanding to other verticals as promised to the 5,000 people who have invested in Emma in our last crowdfunding round.
I understand the reason for venturing into other verticals and support it as well however my main concern is that the budgeting side of this app has been demoted to a tiny icon at the top left and instead wish it was one of the core options at the bottom. Due to its current placement and size (compared to the other features) it feels like you’re prioritising the other features more.
My suggestion would be an evolution from the current bottom tabs on the app where an additional middle tab is created which is slightly bigger and is for budgeting or analytics.
A second option would be to swap the upgrade tab with the budgeting icon.
I have done a super quick sketch of my idea and included it in this reply. (I hope it uploads)
I agree with your points @nish.shakya. And personally I would prefer Budgets, Analytics, and even Goals/Savings (like Nova) in the bottom navigation bar.
If anything, allowing further customisations might be another way to upsell Pro. I am a Pro member and would appreciate having the option to hide features I don’t use, such as pay and investments and the switching offers on all of my bill payments. I’d really like being able to use the bottom bar for shortcuts to things I really use such as the different types of accounts. Much like how Facebook allows a degree of flexibility on customising their bottom bar.
It’s probably too late for the current version (3.0), but perhaps for the next major version (4.0) Emma should consider making the feed entirely customisable - a bit like a container for various widgets.
The rest of the app could be rigid and laid out in an entirely prescriptive way, including pushing the revenue generating aspects of the app, and the feed could be the space for user customisation
Yeah, maybe a tile layout. Tbh, something like Chase has where you can pull the elements up and down into a different order and hide the bits you don’t want would do the trick on the feed for me.
I understand there are places on the feed for Budgeting and Analytics, but I agree it feels like the core of the app has been deprioritised - budgeting, analytics, savings goals. If they were that important they would feature in the bottom navigation.
Yeah really not a fan of all the bloat like Cashback, stock offerings, payments etc in the name of ‘Growth’. Features that would have been good for a plain budgeting app like Offline Stock Tracking have been left by the wayside to support first party offerings instead. This feels counter the customer goal of having a veristile budgeting / analytics app that you can tailor to your finanicial setup - we are now in a position where there is an incentive for Emma NOT to offer more integrations because it will hurt their own offerings.
I’d like to see features like stocks come in alongside general stock management features so it’s an alternative but not the only option they are going to support.
There’s a huge thread further down the page (that has now been locked for no apparent reason) where many users have pushed back on a number of changes in the app. Worth digging up and reading through.
What I don’t understand is why, after users have signed up to a feedback forum to give carefully thought through feedback about recent problematic changes, feedback is shrugged off with “the app is not changing much”.
When you say you’ve been an investor for some time, do you mean you participated in the crowdfunding last year?
If you did, you backed plans for Emma to get involved in investing, crypto and payments. I’d also prefer Emma to avoid those areas and just focus on tracking and budgeting, but the success of last year’s raise means they are committed. Emma is going to have to bring in these new features as well as promote user engagement with these new features.
To be honest, the way we feel is the complete opposite. All these features have been placed in the Feed which is the thing 95% of users see all the time they get in the app (we have the numbers).
With this said, we have taken lots of constructive feedback and shipped it in the app.
To mention a few:
Totals in search
Everyday back
Quick way to swipe between the sections
We rebuilt budgeting elements
We are going to:
Remove the 3 buttons in Feed (and move bank transfer sto Pay)
At the same time, the team is working to launch Emma Ultimate which introduces business accounts and spaces; and we are testing a trading platform in Invest.
Instead of rolling out updates without consulting users, I think it would be wise to use a platform like https://canny.io/ so users can vote on features and feedback remains visible, searchable, and dosn’t get lost. Maybe more importantly - the Emma team can distinguish votes from paid vs free users to prioritise.
User feedback is key. Your customer changes over time and you have to adapt - going with gut without consulting users isn’t the best move anymore.
I did and I am more than happy to see that Emma is bringing in the new features that they planned on. The point I was trying to make, which I think may have been misunderstood, is that it feels like recently the priority has been shifted to investing and payments rather than budgeting and analytics. Its great to delve into new features to constantly expand the offering but we should not loose sight on what made the app great in the first place. My aim with starting this post was to hopefully bring the focus back to analytics and budgeting; not to criticise the new features or to say that the developers aren’t doing their jobs. I apologise if I may have accidentally made it seem like I was.
allows a degree of flexibility on customising their bottom bar.