Fundsbridge is an app that offers suitable investments to investors. It offers the ability to invest in a variety of companies, mutual funds and ETFs. Unlike most investment platforms, Fundsbridge presents its users with different investment options at one time.
I designed an end-to-end mobile app which enables investors to easily invest in any business of their choice spanning through real estate, agriculture, oil and gas, telcos, etc
Fundsbridge, a fintech app that provides investment options that are suitable for investors. The app offers an integrated digital platform where users can manage all their investments and monitor investment performance.
Finding a reliable, simple and secured investment platform where users can invest in any profitable businesses of their choice
Fundsbridge helps investors make better decisions on investments so they can do more with their money.
I was the lead UI/UX designer on this project, conducted user research, user interviews, brand identity and designing of brand digital assets
In making this project, I went through design thinking approach for systematically identifying the user needs in order to ideate the solution that given lasting value for the customer.
Fundsbridge is designed with the aim of helping investors find investment opportunities that are suitable for them. It also helps them manage their funds and provides them with customised services.
The first thing to do at this phase is understanding the problem we are trying to solve, gathering a deep understanding about user needs, their pain points and motivations. To have a clearer understanding of this we need to adopt several research methodologies to capture exact needs of users driven by data collected. To best collect this data accurately, I adopted the qualitative research methodologies, as it allows the users to describe exact pain points and narrow down problem areas, while conducting the research.
I also conducted a quantitative research by distributing the questionnaire for gaining more insight and gathered the user’s background. Synthesizing these research, I found that the main ways investors invest in businesses is through closed community reach with each other and in organizations with close colleagues.
Half the duration of this project is understanding investors, I kept iterating on their core needs, Investors have a lot on their plate. They need to manage their investments and ensure they’re making smart choices. That’s why Fundsbridge will bridge that gap and offers suitable investments to investors, helping them make better decisions so they can do more with their money.
Fundsbridge idea is to offer timely investment notification, availability of investment options, and funds management through an easy-to-use interface that makes it simple for investors to get started.
I spoke to current investors in various sectors, guiding the conversations with these questions. I then created an affinity diagram with post-its to organize key ideas that came out of these conversations.
With a more comprehensive idea of what questions there were to answer, the next step was to conduct 1-on-1 user interviews.
The goal — gain an understanding of what motivates people to change their health, what products they are using or have tried to use to improve their health, and what obstacles/pain points they encounter.
Participants
Synthesizing into 5 questions;
What was your experience investing in businesses, assets or bonds?
How did you learn about the app you currently use for your investments?
What caused stress in the process?
How many accounts do you have connected to your investment account?
How do you feel about the process of keeping track with market updates?
Are there ways that you have required for a support in investing?
What do you like about your current investment app?
What is the biggest pain point you experience investing?
Users wants to choose from over 1000 mutual funds and stocks listed on NSE & LSE.
Users wants to create their own portfolio by selecting different types of assets like stocks, bonds, real estate etc. or by choosing from existing portfolios created by experts.
After creating a portfolio, users can buy or sell shares with ease through the app’s automated trading feature.
Motivated by family and friends; Friendly competition.
Once the key take-aways from the user base were better understood, early sketches were created to begin an attempt to solve pain points and ship a product that performs the tasks users need. HMW statements were used in this process to keep early designs focused on specific tasks:
In this process, I made a site map and user flows for critical routes to aid users navigation and also to guide the usability design processes.
After a round of Guerilla Testing (done with POP by Marvel) with the initial sketch design and 5 participants, there were a few pain points discovered in early sketches that were addressed and resolved prior to wireframing.
With the product taking shape, it was time to turn to its brand and style. In order to get a consistent visual message which resonates with and informs the user, I created a style guide which was influenced by the brand guidelines
With the structure and style set through the work done with the usability design and visual design steps, I could start working on the high-fidelity designs. Using a UI kit and the style guide in conjunction with the wireframes from earlier stages, I worked out issues for it to be both usable, fit within the style guide, and accessible.
User Testing
After designing a few high fidelity pages, I ran them through an accessibility audit to check for color and contrast and screen reader readability, this passed the WACG 2.0 guidelines.
Accessibility Audit
After designing a few high fidelity pages, I ran them through an accessibility audit to check for color and contrast and screen reader readability, this passed the WACG 2.0 guidelines.
Next Steps
I’d explore further a lot of the concepts I played around with in my sketches and low-fidelity wireframes. The feature is built around the idea of collaboration on projects and organizations, so I wanted to explore the idea of displaying these in students’ profiles, which would be beneficial in helping students who may not have much professional experience and feel overwhelmed by LinkedIn to begin building LinkedIn profiles, which will benefit them in their job search.
I’d also like to explore the onboarding process — to help students understand why this is a useful app and have them fill out their interests, as well as working out the event and people tabs.
Learnings
The process of applying a Design Thinking mindset— identify a problem space, define an unresolved problem, ideate solutions from scratch, and then prototype/test those solutions (while maintaining a human-centered approach) was rewarding and an excellent opportunity to grow as a UX researcher and designer.
As someone who would enjoy personally using the app I designed, there were certainly challenges with creating solutions that reflected the users’ wants and needs without projecting my own assumptions on to the project.
Collecting data with research, user interviews, and usability testing was paramount to maintaining focus on the user and staying unbiased to the design process. Additionally, frameworks like JTBD and HMW statements were integral in keeping this project on track as the design process evolved.
Future iterations would include the design of features such as: talking to an expert, using a built-in calendar, inputting and logging data, and further development of the mental-health areas of the app.
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