InvestingNote

A social network for stock investors

Overview

InvestingNote is a social media platform for stock investors to exchange insights about the stock market and make better investment decisions.

Role

I was privileged to be the startup's first in-house designer, and worked closely with the founding team of three to redesign and propose improvements to the InvestingNote platform.

Challenge

I was involved in redesigning the InvestingNote platform and proposing new features so that users will feel empowered and motivated to become better investors, and view the platform as a top-of-mind choice for savvy investors who are looking to practice practical and informed investment.

Period & Timeframe

December 2016 — January 2017
1 month

Skills

UI Design, UX Design, Visual Design

Tools

Sketch, Photoshop, Illustrator

Research

When I joined, the InvestingNote team had already launched the first version of their platform for both desktop and mobile, and as the startup was in its first few years of growth, its priorities revolved around acquiring and retaining users to grow their user base.

User Needs & Goals

Having launched the first iteration of its platform, the InvestingNote team had already established a well-defined vision for its key product. We also had valuable information about our existing user base that we could tap on. We were designing the platform with two key types of users in mind: mid-career professionals with fundamental investment knowledge, and young students or graduates in their early stages of planning their finances. A key assumption that we made about our target audience is that they are comfortable with using technology to achieve their investment objectives.

After conducting some research into our user base, I established these user needs & goals to underpin my redesign:

  1. Seasoned investors want to be noticed and build their credibility, and those new to investing would like to share their ideas and questions – and get feedback – to become better investors.
  2. Users want to be affirmed for sharing their views and using the platform – important in keeping the platform at the top of their minds.
  3. Users are looking for a one-stop solution for everything related to investing in stocks, where they can keep themselves abreast with the stock market and build their investment portfolios.

Design

During my one month at InvestingNote, I worked closely with the team to reorganise the information architecture of its platform, consider areas of improvement to create an engaging and visually pleasing experience for users, and lay the groundwork for a long-term brand identity. I also studied and critiqued the existing user interface of our platform to understand its design decisions and think about how it may be improved.

Landing Page

Previously, the landing page felt unengaging, and discouraged users from exploring the platform. I decided to include visual elements and descriptions that capture InvestingNote's desktop and mobile platforms, going for a clean, professional look to inspire trust among potential users.

To give users an opportunity to explore the platform and form an interest in it, clicking 'Explore' leads users to our 'Explore' page in the logged-out state, giving them a preview of the platform's various features. Previously, the 'Explore' page was only available to logged-in users, locking most of the platform's features into our existing base of users.

Dashboard

Previously, the dashboard looked cluttered with information, burdening users with cognitive overload. For users, it was important that the dashboard was well-organised and straightforward. They had to be able to complete the key and frequent tasks of sharing and browsing updates efficiently, and the other features of the platform had to also be easily accessible.

Profile Page

A defining feature of our platform is our points-based reputation system. A user's reputation is an aggregated measure of their activity on our platform. It serves two key functions: it signals a user's credibility and experience in investment, and accumulating reputation points unlocks rewards, helping to build stickiness to the platform. The profile page was redesigned to allow the user's activity and contributions to the platform to clearly speak for themselves. The user's reputation, along with their profile, investment styles and stocks they are tracking are clearly displayed to build an impression of credibility.

Stock Page

Similarly, the stock page was redesigned such that key information is easy to find. To encourage users to engage one another easily, real-time updates about the stock and the top contributors to discussions about the stock are also displayed to provide an incentive to further explore the platform.

Mobile Version

Besides the desktop version, I designed the mobile version of our platform for Android based on Material Design, as well as iOS.

One-stop destination for stock & investment information

We wanted to make searching for important and relevant stock information easier for our users, regardless of whether it was about overall market movements, or tracking fluctations in a particular stock of personal interest. We decided to aggregate user watchlists, stock market information and important events in one place — 'Stocks'. Users can switch between their watchlists with a single tap, and edit, create or delete watchlists from the same page. For stock market information, pertinent updates about major stock indices are prominently displayed.

Making profiles more useful

We understood that to promote InvestingNote as a top-of-mind platform for anything stock-related, it might be helpful to start from offering our users greater control over their profiles, allowing them to manage their credibility and deepen the extent of their activity and interactions on the platform. With the reputation system in place, the opportunity to brainstorm ways for users to efficiently redeem their rewards using their reputation points naturally presented itself as well.

In the improved redemption flow, users can add multiple rewards to their cart, while keeping track of their points balance. Upon checking out, they will be asked to enter their contact details to submit their redemptions all at once, eliminating the problem of handling multiple submissions.

Information at a glance

We also revamped key informational pages such as 'Portfolio' and 'Stock' to help users quickly get the information that is most useful or relevant to them.

Prototype

Thanks for reading! Click on the link below to try our interactive prototype.

View Prototype