Institute of Art Design + Technology Dún Laoghaire
Ireland’s campus for the Creative Industries

Daniel McCloskey 

 
MSc User Experience Design

I am a multi-disciplinary designer with over a decade of industry experience working as a designer and art director. My research project incorporated age-progressed avatars of users within a pension app to encourage customers to save more for retirement. Previous research has shown that by aiding users in imagining their future, they feel greater empathy towards their future self and this is reflected in how much they are willing to save towards their pension.

Pay it forward: Using age progressed avatars within a digital savings app to encourage young people in Ireland to save more for retirement.

Research has shown that interventions that help volunteers visualise their future, either by creating an age-progressed image of their future appearance or through exercises which help participants imagine their future lifestyle, increases volunteers' connection to their future-self and in turn increases how much they are willing to contribute towards their pension. This study furthers this research by fully integrating a future-self avatar within a pension app. This avatar allows participants to see what they could look like in the future and provides prompts and feedback on their saving decisions.