Timeline
9 Weeks
Tools
Figma, Axure
Work Project
Product Manager*1
UI Designer*1
Frontend Engineer*1
Backend Engineer*2
QA Engineer*1
My Role
User & Market Research
UX Design
User Interface Redesign
Product Management
Investio is a personal finance app that helps manage irregular cash flows and track investment returns on an annualized basis, empowering users to take charge of their financial well-being.
From 2021 to 2022, I was part of the @QuantaSing, a FinTech/EdTech Startup that specializes in providing online finance courses and supplementary products. Our 30+ member team is dedicated to driving user growth by improving the AARRR funnel. This project is one of our products designed to increase user retention and referral.
Investio
360 DigiTech, Inc.
Annualized Rate of Return
9.40%
Cumulative Return
14.33%
Total Assets
$20,000
Share
Share
More
Cash In
Cash Out
Current Asset
Transactions
Cash Flows
Cumulative
Annualized
$8,000
$12,000
$16,000
$4,000
$0
- 200
+1,000
06/22/2021
05/07/2021
+1,000
07/01/2021
Edit
Delete
STEP 2/5
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Back
Add Transactions
Cash Flows
Record Asset
Record Cash Flows by adding cash in and cash out under specific investment accounts.
Every time record your cash flows, update your total assets as well.
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Project Intro:
Simplifying the way of managing irregular cash flows
Onboarding
Oversee diverse investment wallets and update account info with a simple click on "edit."
Cash In and Out
Record positive and negative cash flows, channeling total assets into designated accounts.
Account
Visualize returns through trend graphs and maintain a transparent record of financial performance.
For the minimum viable product, we designed with 3 main features: Onboarding, Transactions, & Customer referrals
Background
Level 1 : Beginning courses
Level 2 : Intermediate courses
Level 3 : Advanced courses
Online Finance courses
Entry and Mid-Level Investors
👨🏻🦳
👨🏻🌾
👩🏻🍼
From 2021 to 2022, I was part of a startup that specializes in providing online finance courses and supplementary products, containing the bond calculator, fund screener, annuity calculator, etc.
Main Services
Offering 3 levels of courses: Level 1 is free; Level 2 & 3 are paid services that include additional courses, extra resources and long-term interests.
Existing Customer Groups
60% of our users are 45+, predominantly store owners or retirees with disposable income and time, yet often lacking in investment experience.
Our Team
driving user growth by improving the AARRR funnel
As a team that focuses on #User Growth, customer referral and retention are essential metrics in our pursuit of success.
To achieve this, we broke down the seasonal demand into 2 aspects, aligning them with the AARRR framework.
02. Assist the VIP members in managing irregular cashflows
Design a platform where members can record irregular transactions on a daily basis, frequently check the ROI, and thus increase the overall retention rate.
01. Promote referrals by offering rewards for existing users
Design a system where VIP members are willing to share their performance and introduce prospective users to our products.
AARRR Metrics
potential solutions
Acquisition
Activation
Revenue
Retention
Referral
Why Design
Entry and mid-level investors Need tools to assist them managing investments alongside the online courses.
(1) According to the existing customer profiles, entry and mid-level investors are our main user group.
(2) We regularly review the customer feedback to ensure our course members are enjoying their time with our services.
“ I found that actual investment are much harder...There’re many cash flows, which makes practical implementation more difficult.
“ I would suggest providing tools to help us learn and invest, with instructors teaching their usage in class.
“ I have trouble understanding and managing the uneven cash flows and XIRR...it‘s pretty time-consuming.
“ The courses are tightly scheduled, and beginners like me find it a bit overwhelming to start investing.
Our Process
PHASE 1
PHASE 2
PHASE 3
PHASE 4
PHASE 5
1st round user research
2nd round user research
UI Design
Evaluate opportunities
Initial draft
Final draft
Product & UX reviews
Testing
Market research
My Contribution
Market Research + User Research + Brainstorm + UX Flows + UI Redesign
Scheduled meetings & tasks + Ensuring On-time deliverables
Understanding User Needs
Survey
Method: Survey
To get direct feedback from the target & potential users, I created a 7 - minute survey on learning their preferences.
participants
I sent out surveys to existing course members on our main platform where they can utilize a range of resources.
Responses
The survey has been filled out by 5,058 potential users where 90% of them are existing customers.
💡 User Research Findings
Limited Knowledge: Though respondents pay close attention to their investment performance, only a few of them have a general understanding of the annualized returns of investments. Meanwhile, less than one-third of respondents can accurately calculate XIRR.
Investing Habits: Most respondents show strong interests in financial tools that could assist investing and would like to introduce them to friends.
Willingness to Use: The majority of finance apps in the market only provide absolute returns (e.g., the cumulative rate of return), which could not cater to users' need to understand the actual investment performance.
Designing Survey
01. Basic Information
Understand the participants' learning and investment experience to identify the backgrounds of the initial user base.
02. Investment Habits
Inquire about the participants' habits, including their level of interest in investment indicators, and which indicators they pay the most attention to.
03. Understanding returns
Understand the participants' level of comprehension regarding annual returns.
04. Preference
Ask about the participants' preferences and demand for products/financial tools, including open-ended questions, to gather more feedback from users.
Understanding Market
Positioning Matrix
To grasp the target market and uncover opportunities, we compared our value proposition with other personal finance APPs in China.
📝 Details: Product and Feature Competitors
💡 Market Research Findings
Investment Returns: The annualized rate of return on investment is a frequently used ratio for evaluating gain/loss on investments relative to its cost. However, most competitors pay more attention to the cumulative return than the annualized index, and hence, investors may have difficulties measuring profitability.
Competitors’ Focus: Rather than the overall performance, some competitors are more concerned with the returns of portfolios offered on their own apps/websites.
Referral Gaps: Some competitors do not have referral programs, while some only have unclear buttons that are difficult for users to refer.
investors care about the annualized return, because...
Identify User Needs
Accuracy
The annualized rate of return is a more accurate way to measure irregular cash flows compared with other rates of return.
Frequency
Irregular cash flows frequently happen in investments.
It’s difficult for investors, especially the beginners, to manage.
Scarcity
Only a few products in the market (in China) focus on the annualized rate of return. Some professionals rely on the Excel to calculate returns.
How to boost the Customer Acquisition and Referral rates by offering a ancillary tool?
Business Concerns
Course Members
ancillary tools
New Customers
refer / invite
Utilize
Takeaways
How Might We...
For VIP Members/Beginners
Frequent monitoring of their returns
Lack of understanding in absolute returns
Have the interest in financial tools
Relatively strong willingness to refer
How might we develop a user-friendly platform for junior and mid-level investors to understand absolute returns and track investments easily?
Current Market (In China)
Lack of direct competitors
Untapped potential in utilizing user referrals
How might we leverage the market position and incentivize users to refer our products, thus promoting organic growth?
Opportunities
MVP Goal
test the tool internally: understand usability and assess members’ willingness to refer.
For this MVP, our main goal is to internally test the tool. Since most of our VIPs/existing users are beginner investors, and they have the easiest access to our products, they're a good fit for the testing group.
Information Architecture
Wireframing
Style Guide
01. Primary Typeface
I selected the Inter font because it maintains great readability and is one of the most popular fonts used for mobile apps.
Inter
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02. Color Scheme
For the color scheme, I was inspired by the colors in the stock market, since the green and red colors represent a kind of trend. Also, the color black represents the feeling of formal, sophisticated, being strong.
# 33B47A
# 46D6A2
# DCF1E9
# F2FBF8
Primary
Secondary
# 191819
# 909090
# D1D1D6
# F9F8F8
# DD3333
# A40202
Components
Onboarding
The onboarding process leads new users step by step through our tool, introducing them with the management of cashflows, assets, accounts, and wallets.
User Referral
We encourage existing users to refer our tool and finance courses to new customers, rewarding actions like sharing return graphs and offering free course trials.
Transactions
Users can manage various wallet accounts for specific investments by adding cash flows, updating assets, and tracking extended or cumulative returns in this MVP.
01. Respondents who are relatively experienced investors have more urgent needs for better controlling the uneven cashflows.
02. Some experienced investors we interviewed said they usually use Excel to calculate the XIRR rate every week/month/season. So that if we could launch a product that integrates the function of XIRR and other investment indicators, they are very likely to use and share.
03. Most respondents show a strong interest in financial tools. However, many of them are “Entry-level” investors who could not handle their investment independently. Therefore, we need to provide detailed functional training on the onboarding page.
Reflections
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