OVERVIEW
This case study explores my redesign of the application as I set out to improve it's UI/UX, and make the app as accessible as possible in-order to promote financial literacy amongst younger people and women.
I redesigned the Wealthsimple app to address usability issues and enhance accessibility, making financial literacy more widespread. The redesign focused on streamlining navigation, modernizing visuals, and ensuring accessibility standards. By incorporating user feedback and industry best practices, I created an intuitive, user-friendly interface to empower users in managing their finances effectively.
The current Wealthsimple app fails to meet user expectations, with clunky navigation and redundant pages leading to frustration. These usability issues create barriers to achieving financial goals, highlighting the need to address key pain points.
The redesign aims to enhance the UI/UX of the Wealthsimple app by resolving usability issues. This will create a more accessible and user-friendly platform, growing the user base and reinforcing Wealthsimple's commitment to user empowerment.
By optimizing the user flows and removing redundant features, the updated design enhances accessibility and user experience. These changes made the app intuitive and efficient, increasing the overall user trust and satisfaction.
My background research on Wealthsimple revealed significant underrepresentation in investing among women and individuals under 35. Women are especially less likely to use the app than men, highlighting substantial barriers to entry such as intimidating interfaces or insufficient financial education. This information underscored the need to simplify and make the investment process more accessible to these groups.
I used the double diamond design process for the Wealthsimple redesign because it allowed me to thoroughly explore and define the core usability issues. In the first phase, I focused on discovering users' needs and pain points, particularly around accessibility and complex navigation. This deep dive helped me pinpoint the most impactful improvements. In the second phase, I developed and refined solutions, ensuring they directly addressed the key challenges identified, ultimately creating a more intuitive and accessible experience for users.
John and Jane Doe represent underrepresented groups within Wealthsimple’s user base—John as a young person under 35 and Jane as a woman managing freelance income. Their experiences highlight unique challenges faced by younger users and women in finance. These personas will help us design focused solutions to streamline onboarding, remove redundancies, and provide tailored guidance for younger users and women, and effectively eliminating any barriers these demographics face.
I conducted targeted user research, interviewing a broad demographic of men and women aged 20 to 50. My goal was to understand their reasons for investing or not, and to identify specific challenges they face using the Wealthsimple app. This research allowed me to understand to things: Issues faced by people who were actively investing on the Wealthsimple app, and some of the reasons that have prevented some people from investing all together.
Users were asked to navigate the Questrade app and complete similar tasks, such as setting up an account, making deposits, and exploring educational resources. This test revealed that Questrade faced many of the same issues as Wealthsimple, but with even greater difficulty in accessibility and ease of use. The navigation was also more cumbersome, with critical features buried under multiple menus and layers. Users found the process of completing tasks tedious, often encountering unclear instructions and financial jargon that created additional barriers.
To identify usability issues within the Wealthsimple app, I conducted a user test, asking participants to navigate through various tasks, such as setting up an account, and managing recurring deposits. After completing these tasks, users were surveyed to understand their experiences and any challenges they encountered within the app. Users found the app unintuitive and confusing, especially first-time investors or users without financial backgrounds. Key pain points included a lack of clear guidance, complex navigation.
I used two user-testing methods. The Five-Second Test helped gauge initial impressions and ease of understanding, while A/B Testing compared different design versions, allowing me to identify the most user-friendly options for Wealthsimple’s audience. User testing revealed positive feedback on the simplified navigation, reduced complexity, and streamlined onboarding process. Users particularly appreciated the resolution of information overload.
Displayed here is some of the old problematic UI/UX which was filled to the brim with usability issues, which was central to why a lot of younger people were put-off by investing. Not only was it completely ineffective, but it also served to alienate a huge amount of people from being able to access investing, and by extension financial literacy.
Displayed here is the completed UI/UX redesign, exemplifying simplified navigation and a clearer onboarding process, making the platform significantly more accessible, particularly for younger users and women who have been underrepresented in investing. By improving the user experience on such a widely used platform as Wealthsimple, these changes not only make investing more approachable but also encourage a broader demographic to engage with financial planning and investment, promoting financial literacy and empowerment.
