Piggypay - hear your money
Introduction
Piggy Pay is a collaborative project between the Interaction design and Advanced product design programs, exploring the question: What if you could hear you money? Inspired by the familiar sound of coins rattling in a piggy bank, we set out to make digital money feel more tangible. Our goal was to explore how sound and physical interaction could create an engaging, playful, and intuitive way to interact with finances.
Project info
3 weeks, Spring 2024
Group project
Umeå Institute of Design
Focus
Sound design
Expression
Winter 2025
Team
Chenxi Li
Yixin Zhu
Simon Ljungblahd
Signe Lindgren
The problem
Modern digital transactions lack physical and emotional presence. Money is just numbers on a screen. Many people, especially young adults, struggle to grasp their spending and saving habits because money feels intangible. Common frustrations include:
"I save money, but I don’t feel like I’m getting richer."
"I have no sense of how much I’ve spent in a night out."
The result
We created Piggy Pay, a playful pig-themed financial companion that combines sound, tactility, and movement to make money feel more tangible. The design includes a handheld piggy device for saving and a phone integration for payments. Sound feedback, such as pig noises and coin sounds, enhances the experience, making financial interactions more intuitive. Users can turn Piggy’s nose to select savings amounts, pat it to check their balance, and listen as it responds. By balancing fun and practicality, Piggy Pay encourages better financial awareness and engagement in a way that feels natural and enjoyable.
So how do we make money more fun and intuitive?
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A video demonstrating how Piggy helps a user achieve her financial goals.
Turn on sound! 🔊
Working together
A strong sense of teamwork was at the heart of this project. We collaborated closely, making decisions together, combining our different experiences, and building on each other’s strengths. Yxin, from APD, brought expertise in product design and manufacturing, while Simon’s experience in Blender helped bring our animations to life. Aurora took on new tools in After Effects to craft the pig’s interface, and I took main responsibility in directing and editing the final film. We also supported each other in areas like sound design and concept development, ensuring that every part of the project was a team effort.
Balanceing fun and seriousness
Within the pig theme, we explored different expressions to balance fun and trustworthiness, ensuring the product remained engaging while still feeling reliable for managing money. This balance came through both form and sound. The design leans towards a functional, abstract look for credibility, while the sound adds character and life, making financial interactions feel more intuitive and recognizable.
What if...
Strong metaphor for money and greed.
Promising opportunity for sound exploration.
Fun! =D
The process
We explored many playful ways to make saving money more engaging, from pirate treasure themes to quirky interactions like toasting savings or building budgets with blocks. But the pig theme kept coming back to us. It has a strong historical connection to money, offers rich sound design opportunities, and most importantly, it’s fun—both as a motivation for this project and for encouraging saving habits.
But what if we did this? Exploring how expression could bring the fun
A short video demonstrating our process
Details
Final words
This project taught me just how impactful sound can be in enhancing interactions. I got to experiment with finding the right balance between playfulness and functionality to create something that was both fun and practical. It also really reminded me the power of collaboration. Combining different skills, learning from each other, and working toward a shared vision took this idea to places that wouldn’t have been possible alone.
Piggy with detachable loading station
Overview of nose graphics
Phone animation
Packaging design
