An investing experience for those who have other interests in life than trading.

Deutsche Bank

The challenge

5 weeks to validate an online investment prototype and design the end-2-end user journey.

We joined a project team that has built a working prototype to allocate assets for portfolios - but not considered the end-to-end experience for user to onboard and become a client and then manage the performance of their portfolios on a regular basis.

How might we help people who are new to investments to invest online in a trustworthy and efficient way?

Design challenge

The approach

Pragmatism first! But…

never without real user insights!

Expert UX Review

A working prototype has been created over the course of 6 months - it was time to review it from a user experience point-of-view.

Initially we needed to immerse into the solution and the problem the team wanted to solve. The Value Proposition Canvas helped us to identify how the planned product addresses needs - but also where gaps existed.

We had people recruited for our user test sessions. The UX Lead and I conducted user interviews and crafted insights to identify opportunities and determine people’s needs & pain points regarding online investments.

Half of the time we allocated to testing the existing prototype.

«I have sleepless nights sometimes because I don’t know whom to trust and how to invest my money that I earned hard.»

A test user

User research

Since we joined the project half-way into the release, we merged the prototype test sessions with generative qualitative research to better understand what drives people to invest online.

Our key focus was in understanding if the current prototype actually addresses potential customer’s needs, their concerns and questions. We wanted to look beyond usability flaws, but truly understand what drives people’s decisions when they think about investing online.

Therefore, we profiled potential customers and had 6 people recruited according to our criteria.

We had the interviewees professionally recruited based on the profile we had specified. 6 times a 90 minutes conversation were full of insights and provided us with a clear idea of what users truly value.

Based on these insights, we designed the digital onboarding process and heavily re-designed the Asset Allocation prototype to address people’s needs.

The insights

Our key insights in a nutshell

Most of the interviewees chose investing as a means to address certain financial needs and to achieve goals in life - not because they are interested in the mechanics of investing, trading and finance.

The investor profile of the “gambler/trader” is not attracted by the solution as the portfolio is being professionally managed by experts.

Two of the Product Owner’s favourite features were confusing the users - and later removed.

Two aspects generated most trust: The impact of every input or selection is immediately visualized (i.e. volatility of the performance) and the fact that users can withdraw money at all times just like on a savings account.
All interviewees wanted to explore the asset allocation process without personal support and rather having the explanation in context so they feel comfortable and in control.

Prototype & validate

When the board members offer their friends for user tests the pressure is on our side.

Prototyping was very much a co-creative approach. The UX lead and I started sketching the wireframes together, iterating with the UI Design lead. Once we got to a stable state, we split the tasks and I focused on designing the Client Onboarding journey.

«I’d trust this tool much more than a human financial advisor because it's a tool - it's neutral.»