UX Design Spotlight: Enhancing User Experience in Savings Plans

Earning user loyalty in fintech during a recession

Though — what does it imply to earn loyalty?

Does it mean retention, daily or weekly? Yes, that's one point we can track. But that still needs to build value for the business. Investing means building a portfolio for the long term and depositing regularly. That's key for this UX user case. A customer with an active portfolio leads to regular deposits, leads to more AUM (assets under management), and more AUM is better for the business, and we use it as a KPI to measure the business's health.

UX case studies can get boring, so here's a visual of the product's outcome. Please bear with me on this.

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the problem space

How can we improve recurring investment behaviour and build trust through a simple-to-use investment portfolio that breaks down user barriers? A feature that makes the client feel smart, whether you are a beginning or expert investor.

The challenge

The challenge for a profitable investment app is not science. But it's severe; simultaneously, you must protect your clients and follow the AFM and FCA rules. These are the European regulators for the Netherlands and Great Britain. However, It's primarily about boosting AUM (assets under management) and preventing clients from churning. That said, "You'll need to guide your clients to complete deposits and buy assets — it's both a business and design challenge.

Prefered outcome for loyalty = recurring investment behaviour

Emphasizing the problem

Helping beginning investors to find their first asset to buy and reminding them to deposit periodically. Inform users to diversify assets because it's one way to balance risk and reward in their investment portfolio.

Who does what

See the list below for roles and responsibilities in the product kick-off team. In the meantime, the feature has turned into an ongoing project that varies people and responsibilities. Profiles from left to right:

Sr. Product Owner: Dallyn Misquita
Sr. Product Designer: Jades Paulus
Lead and Backend engineer: Vasyl Zinchenko
Lead and iOS engineer: Ian Guedes Maia
Android engineer: Luís Andrade
Head of Design: Ramon Gervais

My role and main tasks

I oversaw the design process and supported as an IC during holidays. I drove design review sessions with the organisations to receive constructive feedback and plan and scope the design system updates for new components. I communicated with C-level on opportunities and challenges.

Motivate and support the product designer and owner to share the development of the feature company-wide; for all scrum teams in product, Marketing and Performance Marketing. I worked on a long-term vision for the future influence of the company vision. (I'll highlight a few iterations further down the page and share more details about some critical issues for the bigger picture of the company's direction.) And how we created a KPI tree to implement small tasks of the whole epic to complete a transparent user experience.

Who are the customers?

All users that made it through onboarding, including a first deposit.
New potential investors to the financial markets that don't feel comfortable yet — to trust their money in a portfolio.
Experienced investors

Personas

Laura da Silva (31)
Project Manager from The Hague

Laura has spent her 20s working hard, and her career is beginning to take off, and she’s looking forward to buying her first house, which means taking her finances more seriously.

Web or phone? Both, but prefers the app.

Finances
After a recent promotion at work, Laura’s started considering investing to save for the future and possibly generate a passive income.

Approach to Investing
Laura isn’t in a rush. She’s likely to do her own research by reading a few investing books and blogs, then start small. Over time, as her confidence grows, so will the amount she invests.

Pain Points
Being overwhelmed with information and jargon. She wants a broker that makes things easy, with regular updates, resources she can trust and simple explanations.

Product Features
Expects to be able to deposit and withdraw money easily. Likes the idea of diversifying with ETFs. She is happy making her own trades each month and automating investments when she settles on a strategy.

Bram Zeinstra (25)
Accountmanager from Amsterdam

Bram grew up on his family farm in Friesland and now enjoys life in the big city. He’s outgoing and career-minded and wants to start making things happen in his life.

Web or phone? Expects both

Finances
After a recent promotion at work, Laura’s started considering investing to save for the future and possibly generate a passive income.

Approach to Investing
Laura isn’t in a rush. She’s likely to do her own research by reading a few investing books and blogs, then start small. Over time, as her confidence grows, so will the amount she invests.

Pain Points
Being overwhelmed with information and jargon. She wants a broker that makes things easy, with regular updates, resources she can trust and simple explanations.

Product Features
Expects to be able to deposit and withdraw money easily. Likes the idea of diversifying with ETFs. She is happy making her own trades each month and automating investments when she settles on a strategy.

Thomas Rosseau (39)
Senior Business Analist from Haarlem

Thomas has had a big year. In the past 12 months, he has started a new job, bought a new house and his wife just gave birth to their first child. He knows he needs to start focusing on his financial future.

Web or phone? On his laptop, web.

Finances
After a recent promotion at work, Laura’s started considering investing to save for the future and possibly generate a passive income.

Approach to Investing
Laura isn’t in a rush. She’s likely to do her own research by reading a few investing books and blogs, then start small. Over time, as her confidence grows, so will the amount she invests.

Pain Points
Being overwhelmed with information and jargon. She wants a broker that makes things easy, with regular updates, resources she can trust and simple explanations.

Product Features
Expects to be able to deposit and withdraw money easily. Likes the idea of diversifying with ETFs. She is happy making her own trades each month and automating investments when she settles on a strategy.

The Design proces

We are already familiar with the direction that the team needs to go. However, I want to mention two ways of starting a project like this one; either by option (A.), a clear goal from C-level or option (B.) by pitching ideas to C-level.

Option A: The team needs to develop a list of hypotheses and prioritise the list by doing research in collaboration with Business intelligence. They can help the team discover if any useful data can back up the assumptions. This might work quickly if the team doesn't have to create new funnels. Otherwise, you might have to wait a few weeks. And you'll need, of course, users; in some cases, that isn't possible because the idea is so NEW that it hasn't any breadcrumbs yet to measure in the first place.

Option B: The team organises a design sprint and starts brainstorming together; backend, frontend, Product and Design on ideas. Usually, that takes one day for the engineers and a couple of days for the PO and the designer to build prototypes and sketches and do some internal UX research. If everyone is happy, you pitch the idea to the C-level.

"Before we continue, I would like to share some alternative ideas we made during the PO and Design workshop to make sure we don't run out of interesting ideas for upcoming quarters. This is also part of our design process; all Heads and leads get together to review the backlog and share ideas from inside the organization or from user feedback. As soon as one of the ideas gets prioritised, the following teams should start reviewing it; Operations, Legal & Compliance, Business Intelligent, Product, Engineers, Product Design, UX Writers & Researchers, and Marketing. This is how we horizontally stay aligned."

Business options:

Downsize commissions on orders and deposits.
Alternative and local EU deposit options include Tikkie, iDeal, N26, Revolut, Bank transfer, Credit and Debit cards, etc.
Add more assets in the stocks, ETFs, commodities, options, and cryptos categories.
More assets that payout dividends it is favoured by demand; we know this from user interviews. Automated deposits.
Positive interest rates on user total account value. "The list can be longer, but for now, it's enough".

Design opportunities:

Test and improve deposit and withdrawal flow. "It might be that users can't find the deposit button. I have seen stranger things during user research".
Deposit Reminders and notifications. Or, even better, automated recurring deposits.
Clear messaging for Safety and privacy.
Guidance for users to build a Portfolio, "Which is challenging if you are a new investor; suddenly, everything becomes a blocker, doubts pop-up, users bail out of the flow and churn". Often, users need help figuring out where to start or what to buy first; however, it's not allowed to share advice, so you need to figure out other options.

"Alright, it's a long list. Therefore, I've picked an idea with two spin-offs and used that to showcase what we implemented over time (MVP) and follow the Goal from the main title and primary business criteria. Earning user loyalty in FinTech."

Like any great story, I'll start with the ending (see image). Mainly — to break the tedious amount of words written up until here. Though thank you for staying with me thus far. Meanwhile, if you want to take a break, visit the BUX website for more info on the Savings Plan.

Everything 😬 on my Portfolio is shipped and available in the AppStore and the Google PlayStore.
*Everything besides Hyves and Sellfie, we pulled the plug out of those products.

Part 2

The Design tools

We don't shy away from using pencil and paper. However, we often use these tools to present designs and prototypes. Some are for communicating and planning. I like to sketch on a whiteboard with the product owner. It helps me to uncover edge cases swiftly and to explore ideas that break out of the box. I often feel comfortable when I have seen plenty of options. It delivers me peace of mind and focus.

Figma creating the wireframes and interface (UX/UI)
Illustrator for tweaking icons, illustrations and logos
LOOM for design reviews and feedback
Slack Quick communication
Google Docs Usually, the PDR or other briefings within the organisation
ZOOM video meetings
Asana Design backlog for the design team. Once stories are created, we will move to Jira.
Calendly for scheduling user interviews with the designer's availability
TypeForm for surveys
Jira and Confluence for sprint planning and documentation.

Research: is there a need for a Savings Plan?

An easy user experience with a trusted brand and low commissions are fundamental for our clients.
With a survey, we asked to rank the three most important attributes a bank, broker, or platform should have. The outcome is evident: Ease of use and affordability.

Data source: Brought by a top 3 selection (multiple choice) based on 1000 respondents per country. Q: How would you describe your general Experience with investing in stocks, ETFs, crypto or other investment assets?

Limited Experience: I have tried out a brokerage platform in the last six months.
Some Experience: I have actively used a brokerage platform in the last six months.

The first sketch was based on what we could build with the feature set we already owned.

With our options, we devised a simple flow to select a date and time for execution. An option to add Stocks and ETFs from an asset browser. An option to edit the number of assets. A review screen tot showed the estimated cost for the full plan. And after you submit the plan, a confirmation screen with a thank you message.

The primary function:

Date and time picker (default calendar)
CTA to add assets (open browser with all assets)
CTA to edit assets (delete and change the number of shares)

That's the foundation of the MVP. We still needed to decide where to place it in which vertical and where. The risk we saw was that the idea is so minimal that if we gave it a prominent place, it would do more harm, knowing that not all users would find this first version a helpful tool. After some discussion, we placed it on the home screen but behind the second tab.

In the first version, we run into lots of blockers. Example: Browsing for assets was not friendly at all. Getting inspired and finding what you were looking for was almost impossible. Second: Users needed to buy the full share price because we didn't have fractional orders in place. But we had an official prototype to start testing.

The default tab is the investments of a user. The second tab is the Savings plan

Version 1.0

I dug up my prototype v1.0 the funny thing is that in this version, I even had another proposal as a user entry point for the Plan. (On the Portfolio screen at the bottom, however, we didn't go through with that option.) If you have an understanding of reviewing these flows, you might see the complexity of browsing for assets. Another issue you might have noticed is that it has an edit section to add an amount for each purchase you listed. That is misleading and comes in later (Sorry for that; the Backend was building fractional orders for our platform while we were developing v10 of the savings plan).

The handover

Only after this milestone in the design process did my responsibility for implementation stop. From here, Jades Paulus resumed iterating and maturing 1.0 as a single feature into a continuous project.

This UX case is a living document that I'm updating every day.
I'm sorry for the inconvenience that there's a hard stop right here.
Stay tuned and thanks for visiting my portfolio