Targets

[alexs (Alex Sherwood)]

I confused myself when writing that last post…take 2 -

bold text is text that I’ve added to my previous post

@alexs

Just thinking this through so more, bearing in mind that the scales for the category targets are different from the total monthly target, wouldn’t a comparison between the two different categories be misleading?

If you set a £30 total target, a £10 target for bills & a £20 target for groceries then spend £8 from bills & £15 from groceries. The length of the category’s bars would indicate that most of the deduction from the total target has come from bills but in fact, more’s come from groceries.

So it’s good that the design prevents easy comparison of category’s bars with the total.

The design in your screenshot enables you to easily see where you are in the month vs your category’s target, for each individual category.

@dylanbendrake

you can see how any category is doing compared to your overall target.

But the bars aren’t a comparison of the amount spent in £ against the target for the total spend or a comparison of the amount spent in £ vs the other categories. They do enable you to compare the amount spent as a % vs the other categories.

I like the design & how easy it easy to see where you are, in terms of % spent from each category target vs % of the month that’s passed, although as I’ve discussed here

Spending screen is counterintuitive with targets

I appreciate we can see things differently but I find the spending screen really counterintuitive when tracking against targets. Functionality is that when nothing is spent against a category the bar is full and as spend occurs the bar decreases to the left. I would expect it to be the other way around, the bar starting to grow from left to right as the cash goes out and I am heading towards the target. e.g. I have #164 of #180 left to spend on eating out. The bar is solid almost all the way …

I prefer the orientation of the current design which is focused on amount remaining, rather than how much has been spent.
You could incorporate the position in month tracker (although it would be in reverse chronological order, which would be hard to get to grips with), either extend the bars - as you suggested - or align the timeline with the category bars & keep the rest of the design the same.

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In other words, this is hard to explain in writing & I’ve made a mess of my comments