Challenge Summary
The main objective of this iPhone application is to educate, inform and motivate parents and caregivers to carefully consider the financial future of a loved one with special needs. In doing so, they will minimize adverse impacts on federal and state aid that their loved one with special needs may be entitled to. Without this understanding, they could inadvertently make their loved one with special needs ineligible for state and federal benefits
The application should have four main components.
Be sure to read the requirements below as well as all of the details in the attached documentation. We are looking for a clean UI that is easy to use and presents the information to the user in an intuitive manner. Target Audience Parents or caregivers of special needs individuals. Primary Goals
- A section to educate parents and caregivers on the laws and rules that they need to be aware of.
- A future expense planning section that will allow them to interact with the application and input different scenarios to better understand the amount of money that they may need to save and a "more information" section.
- Ability to Save or email their scenarios in order to have something to use when speaking with a special needs professional.
- A link to our corporate web site that will encourage them to contact a special needs professional trained in this type of financial planning.
Round 1
Your submissions for Round 1 should include all pages to the extent that it demonstrates the direction you are going with the app. At the end of Round 1, the cilent will choose five (5) winners; each will win $50 and a Design Review. These winners, and any member who had a passing submission in Round 1, will be eligible to compete in Round 2 for the additional $1500 in prizes.Round 2
Round 2 will start with the announcement of the five $50 Round 1 winners and the posting of their design reviews in the contest forum. Your submissions should include all required pages and flow as well as any feedback that was given as part of the milestone reviews.Be sure to read the requirements below as well as all of the details in the attached documentation. We are looking for a clean UI that is easy to use and presents the information to the user in an intuitive manner. Target Audience Parents or caregivers of special needs individuals. Primary Goals
- Educate the consumers on the importance of future expense planning and government benefits impacts for loved ones with special needs.
- Provide the parent or caregiver with a tool (calculator with worksheets) to input hypothetical future expenses to consider when planning for future financial needs for their loved one with special needs. End result of calculator needs to be a ?range? and not a specific figure. Need to be able to save or email the results.
- Encourage the parent or caregiver to contact a special needs planner, trained in special needs planning to learn more and link to more information on a website.
- Education- Open to suggestions from community on how best to educate people ( text, audio, video?)
- Calculator- Future expense calculator
- Get Financial Help- Contact a special needs planner (via link to website)
- Looking to educate users about the pitfalls of saving "the wrong way" for special needs. (wrong way meaning that the savings would disqualify the special needs child from federal aid). Looking for suggestions from community on an engaging way to get this point across (Story, Testimonial, Text, Audio, Video, Other?)
- Saving more than $2000 disqualifies children from state and federal aid
- If the Special needs individual makes more than $750 a year, they are disqualified from Federal Aid
- Methods to save money for a special needs individual that will not get him/her disqualified include: 1.) a special needs trust (as the savings and disbursement vehicle); 2.) a whole life policy (a potential funding source) and; 3.) any assets of more then $2000 will disqualify the individual with special needs from receiving government benefits.
- This section should act as a lead into the calculator.
- Expense category entry screen based on attached expense categories.
- Enter age of child for Formula - Life expectancy.
- Calculator uses only "high level" categories for main entry, but should provide some sort of optional mechanism (worksheet?) to allow users to break out smaller details that will total up to the "high level" category. These details are also outlined in the attached sheet. Should allow user to enter custom text as well if there is something that they thought of that is not on our list.
- Based on amounts entered, a summary screen would calculate the future need in a range (not showing a single number for legal reasons) of money that the user would need to save up. Looking for a visual way to show this range in a way that is clear, but non threatening to the user (too large a number will scare people into inaction)
- Ability to save or email the results to themselves (looking for community input for best practice here)
- Lead in text encouraging user to contact a special needs planner
- Link to web site to access the locate an office function
- Design must fit comfortably within the iPhone screen size (320px x 480px).
- Support both portrait and landscape orientation.
- Interface elements should be commonly found, best practice paradigms found on the iPhone.
- Wireframes can be built in HTML, Axure, MS Visio or OmniGraffle. The resulting files are not critical in this contest. The most important point is that all the content is listed and the pages are linked together to show page flow.
Please read the challenge specification carefully and watch the forums for any questions or feedback concerning this challenge. It is important that you monitor any updates provided by the client or Studio Admins in the forums. Please post any questions you might have for the client in the forums.