FITSIP BY 5NANCE

Mobile App Design

'FITSIP' is an SIP (Systematic Investment Plan) product of '5nance' which is an investment advisory and market-place in India. 

I worked as a UX Designer with a team of developers and analysts at Adapty Solutions Mumbai. My responsibility was to provide consulting services in the domain of UX Research and Product Design (Mobile and Web). We worked on ‘5nance’ which was an existing mobile solution and provided services in financial investment and advisory.

CREDITS

UX Designer
Abhijit Chirde

Developer
Amilo D'cruz

Project Manager
Vijay Talreja

OBJECTIVE

'FITSIP' is a module of the larger planned '5nance' mobile application, It is the first module which would be launched as an independent mobile application and further development of additional modules would add-up in 'FITSIP' Mobile App to create a larger system called '5nance'.

The core objectives of this work were to understand the issues faced by existing users of this mobile application and remove the barriers in the user experience process to provide a delightful experience. It is important being an advisory solution in financial services, that the mobile application assists in decision making and timely guidance to the users for taking care of their hard-earned money.

I worked on the complete design process to deliver a new mobile application that would replace the existing product.

DESIGN PROCESS

This design process is a customized flow for this particular assignment. It is inspired by the traditional Design Thinking methodology and Design Sprint Process.

EXPERIENCE JOURNEY

‘5nance-FITSIP’ is already available on the mobile application market with mixed user reviews and market performance. We studied different use cases and experience journey maps to find barriers and pain-points to address in redesign exercise for this product. These maps are created in a focussed group discussion session on the existing version of 5nance-FITSIP.

USER ASSUMPTIONS

1. All the target users are comfortable about using technology and have no problems with using a mobile application.
2. They have heard about the ‘5nance’ mobile application.
3. They are willing to invest money with different goals.
4. They are aware of the concepts of finance and banking systems.

(Users A, B, C, and D are instances of a similar user profile with the above characteristics.)

USER SCENARIOS

1. The user wants to invest money regularly for buying a home/car in the future.
2. The user is not happy with his savings bank schemes and doesn’t feel positive about investing for RD, FD, etc. due to low returns.
3. The user wants to explore more investment options where they will have more flexibility about investing and liquidating their money when needed. It should also have better returns after a specific time period, so they can invest in buying a home/car.
4. The user would be happy if they can do that online or on a mobile phone rather than going to a bank or engaging with some financial agents.
5. The user’s friends suggested them to try the ‘5nance’ app on mobile for their investment. The user is ready to give a try.

AFTER ONBOARDING

In this mobile application’s user journey, the study shows most of the users drop at the registration and on-boarding phase, which makes it hard for the user to enter and experience the complete mobile application.

After analyzing the market performance of the existing '5nance' mobile application from the database, the analysis matched accurately with our experience mapping study showing a significant number of users dropping at the registration stage and resulting in an increased number of uninstalls. Performance and user acquisition data for the previous half-year's performance is explained here. For making it easy for understanding we have split the process into 4 significant phases which accounted for the loss of potential users.

These phases are similar to the experience journey map user scenarios. Here, for every 30 users who downloaded the mobile application from the app store, only 8 users could complete the onboarding and registration process. In the existing application, there is no provision for self-care for the users to make choices on their own about the financial products and make the necessary purchases as per their wish. Once the user goes ahead in the process, a telephone number of the sales representative in the 5nance team is displayed and the user needs to manually contact the person. Due to this, only 3 users from the total 8 which had completed the registration, called the customer representative to inquire about their products. And only 1 user out of those 3 ended up purchasing the product from 5nance.

ANALYZING MARKET & COMPETITOR'S PERFORMANCE

We used 10 Heuristic Principles for testing usability of web-design created by Jakob Nielsen (nngroup.com) for understanding the relationship between the usability of respective market competitor products including the already available production version of ‘5nance Mobile App’ on Google Play Store.

Though the principles were originally drafted for testing the usability of web-design, the generic nature of the rules makes them powerful enough to test mobile product designs as well. We could understand and relate various usability aspects of these market products with their success and user perception. This will help us in formulating the area to work on.

In the table, the products and usability aspects are related on the scale from ‘less usable’ to ‘more usable’ as shown below.

User Feedbacks on FITSIP  (Source: Google Play)

DESIGN WORKSHOP

AFFINITY MAP

Ideas and opportunities from brainstorming workshop are filtered through the process and experience as below.

1. Ensure timer on the on-boarding to show/display what time it takes (like 60 seconds) to do the registration (Process status for user)
2. Onboarding need to be just by using email or mobile (eKYC)
3. Make user enter using a fingerprint scan
4. Increase the speed of the process
5. Get the user to trust 20% returns
6. Get users to quickly load documents
7. Get users to complete their KYC asap
8. Get users to feel it's as simple as a click
9. Get users to get quick access to their KYC docs
10. Get users to have access to their internet banking
11. Get the user to complete all at one go
12. Scan the user's signature and get as image
13. Retrieve user's mobile number and data through their app settings
14. Ensure users to download the app even if it's heavy
15. Make users complete the registration within 24hours of downloading the app
16. Delight the customer with first few screens /customized experience
17. Make customer more comfortable to share their personal information
18. Defer or avoid collecting PAN, Aadhar or banking details before onboarding
19. We help our user to convince our product is better than others
20. Help user to gain trust in the product
21. Minimize the process of onboarding
22. Get customer information without him/her actually needing to entering it
23. Help users to onboard with minimum or no fields to enter
24. Onboard the customer with the minimum number of clicks/taps
25. Use FB/WA or another social login without any other need of interactions
26. Onboard rural customers with Aadhar numbers only
27. Provide income to house-wives through this product
28. Onboard with mobile number only
29. Auto-fetch user address through their address (user not needing to enter address details)
30. Make user capture their images from gallery or device camera
31. Make user use their face as passwords
32. Remove all entry barriers like mobile numbers, PAN, Aadhar, banking, etc.
33. Make app aesthetic and beautiful for the user to want to use it
34. Reduce time taken for onboarding
35. Reduce the number of clicks/taps needed for onboarding
36. Improve ease of using the app
37. Make the first impression a lasting one
38. Use up to the point language and address content clarity

1. Get users to chat with support instantly every time they are stuck at any step
2. Get users to go easily through the entire buying process without getting stuck anywhere
3. Get users to seek help if any doubt on the product
4. Show graphical illustration of his every move on the app and where he is (status)
5. Tell users we want to guide them throughout their journey
6. Make the outcome visible and achievements believable for the user
7. Educate user about financial freedom
8. Build simulation to help the customer decide
9. Make it easy for the customer to interact with the product
10. Identify what suites customer best
11. Give easy content for ease of understanding
12. Get users to know the navigation step.
13. Demonstrate the outcome of the product
14. Demonstrate the USP and superiority of the product
15. Help user to achieve their goal faster
16. Life goals of friends and family and how to achieve
17. Make user understand how can he achieve his goals in this fast life
18. Make user understand how key events impact the market and individual
19. Education about fiscal and market concepts, crude oil movements, the role of monetary agencies (IMF, WB, etc.)
20. Help the user understand the working behind our product
21. Get users to interact with and ask anything about their needs and doubts on the app
22. Identify and warn customers about wrong investment choices
23. Help users if they are not able to understand the app (or something in the app)
24. Keep users updated with regular voice messages, contact on email and mobile numbers
25. Ease of understanding the content
26. Understanding financial markets and concepts
27. Make user understand how using this app will help him
28. User-friendly and interactive interface
29. Identify the language and tones that the customer is most comfortable with
30. Train the user to use the app
31. Make users understand the importance of KYC and different mandates. (Also why canceled cheques are required)
32. Helping users to know why, how much, when to invest in which product
33. Help users understand clearly how they can invest using this app
34. Help users understand what has happened (is happening) to their investment and what they should do
35. Help users to understand how the market affects the investment
36. Identify if the customer has understood the investment before letting him invest
37. Help users understand concepts like MF, NAV, units, SIP cycle dates, the redemption process
38. Help users get instant redemption
39. Help users understand what is IFSC, why is KYC needed, what is SIP, what is FITSIP
40. Make user able to compare products with other lateral products for investment
41. Make user compare their performance with other individuals (social proof?), colleagues, office boss, existing stalwarts
42. Help users understand the difference between other products which are similar to ours
43. Get the user to feel delighted and enlightened by what all problems are solved for him
44. Build confidence on the product uniqueness
45. Demonstrate product delivery under different conditions
46. Help users to understand that our product does not work on a fixed monthly amount

1. Explain growth/dividend
2. Provide easy search product by features
3. Ease of searching product
4. Efficient product display
5. Features and information about the product
6. Require less paperwork
7. Ensure that user takes faster buying decisions with video and audio support available
8. Help user to compare multiple products
9. Help to make a quicker decision for investing
10. Get users to up the value of the purchase
11. Get users to recommend immediately to their friends
12. Less work for customers
13. Smart use of technology
14. Complete control to the user
15. Effective engagement through SMS/email
16. Immediate assistance for the user on a click/tap. Real-time advisor.
17. Complete paperless process
18. Hook for purchasing
19. Help user to enter nominee, SIP period, mandate selection, payment methods as easily as possible
20. Show users real benefits of the investment. (Money!)
21. Show instant gratification to the user
22. User to define next steps post-purchase
23. Show how easy it is to start and use the investor account and easy investments
24. Navigate users to instant buy journey
25. Product info, past performance, compare product
26. Showcase the strength of his purchase decisions and guide him to the time-based buying experience
27. Help user to gain trust, where he is putting his money is safe
28. Get the user to get fully convinced of the proposition and ensure zero dropouts
29. Effective communication at each step
30. Explore other selling opportunities
31. What if I am duped and I am not aware?
32. Am I being sold a wrong product?
33. How can I cross-check about the product?
34. How simple and secure it is?
35. Can we see someone doing investment before I do it?
36. Answer questions the customer may have before completing the purchase
37. Let the customer feel that he is in full control of the purchasing process
38. Provide an order summary so that a customer knows exactly what he is purchasing
39. Help if the user's buying process breaks in between
40. Motivate users to go through the whole journey (motivation everywhere)
41. Get users to decide which fund among the options
42. Build confidence among the users on the schemes
43. Not leave any 'add to cart' unattended and update user about his intention
44. Get the user to quickly access his bank account
45. Get users to appreciate the quality of recommendations
46. Time/clicks taken to purchase the product
47. Provide the customer with the most comfortable mode of payment
48. Paperless and immediate payments
49. Provide an immediate proactive response to any issues
50. Make all important info/values available on the click during the purchase
51. Make any help required readily available through phone, email, chat
52. Minimum number of steps to buy

1. Continue the trust and confidence of customer on his purchase
2. Regularly give him wow feelings about his purchase
3. Make the user feel happy about his decisions in investing
4. Help user to get delighted when his complete investment of 2years per se is executed
5. Encourage the customers to not delete the app
6. Educate customers on future investment avenues
7. Informa user and delight him with a successful investment
8. Help user to invest one more time in the same product
9. Make users spend 20-30 minutes weekly to check updates on the app
10. Make users buy more and different products in few more after his first investment
11. Get the customer to plan more FIT-SIPs for other goals and refer to friends
12. Get the customer to believe it's delivering as promised
13. Get customers to buy other products on 5nance
14. Make customer show their friends and family what they have done (rather than them explaining it)
15. Help users to track his investments
16. Regular updates on portfolio/products purchased
17. The information available on other products
18. Give users current progress information in the format required by them
19. Help users to stay updated on their investments
20. Showcase our performance and stability of its purchases
21. Give periodic visibility to the journey towards their goal and show achievements
22. Let customers withdraw their money in a way convenient to them
23. Give users complete details on next steps
24. Proactive customer engagements in case of any issues
25. Updates, trends, notifications
26. Ease of tracking and redemption
27. Suggest new products
28. End-to-end complaint resolution, real-time status
29. Status of their purchases
30. Quick resolution of any issues. On phone-email. Within 24hours response.
31. Give users exit advice to make profits
32. Timely alerts for any actions - Not overdoing with multiple emails, SMS
33. Periodic updates on investments
34. Give users information about any new opportunities
35. Give users a clear status about their order
36. Quick handling of payment errors
37. Flexible and efficient withdrawal methods
38. Advising other purchases
39. A button to recommend, raise an issue, buy
40. Quick help users if their investment transaction is unsuccessful
41. Follow up with users if they forget something
42. Be available whenever the user needs
43. Be obsessive with users and more specifically with their goals
44. Provide one-to-one support
45. Efficiently handle delay in communications
46. Support for non-commercial transactions
47. Renewals, Missed SIP due to insufficient funds, Change of the nominee,
48. Don't let a query-request unattended
49. Provide users request-reply timeline (communications history)
50. Share regular feedback on my wall
51. Communicate proactively with customers about market volatility and impact on their purchase (Still retain their faith)
52. Reach out to customers after purchase already happened

DESIGN DIRECTIONS

We will funnel it down by finding areas to work on after effort and impact analysis of all the ideas and voting by the stake-holders.

HOW MIGHT WE

1. Defer collecting important data from users
2. Reduce time taken to onboard
3. Benefits should be visible
4. Hassle-free and quick registration
5. Visible status to users
6. Trust
7. Information up to the point

1. Understanding of the App and ease of use
2. Understanding recipe
3. Provide Instant help and help on demand
4. Comparison
5. Build confidence (Internal and external triggers)

1. Improved trust in the system
2. Easier decisions
3. Quick and distraction-free
4. Complete user control
5. Transparency
6. Visibility of benefits

1. Efficient communication
2. System transparency
3. Regular updates
4. Delightful product
5. Flexibility

ACTIONABLE ITEMS

1. One-click account login (FB, Google, LinkedIn, etc.)
2. The minimum field for users (only important)
3. Auto-populate data
4. Single sign-on for mobile device
5. Skip registration till purchase happens
6. Fingerprint login
7. OTP verification if forgot the password (Easy way to change password)
8. Trigger to download app (!)
9. Numbers (stats) on welcoming screen to increase user faith in product

1. Gamified recipe
2. Interactive FAQs
3. Help voice to chat conversion
4. Whatsapp integration
5. Chat button
6. Friendly language
7. Visual cues for helping the user interact with elements
8. Every field to have hidden help available
9. Tapping a button open video (video chat?) with the salesperson
10. Localization
11. How do I change the language in mid-way? (Eng-Hindi)
12. Chatbots (other bots)

1. Single page checkout
2. One-click payments (prepaid wallets?)
3. Remove distractions
4. Cart persistence
5. Fingerprint pay (and wallets)
6. Quick confirmation

Decision Helpers

1. How many other people actions? (Social proof)
2. Performance and trend
3. Minimizing decisions
4. Goal visualization
5. Expert's opinions
6. App performance
7. Comparison and benchmarking
8. Comparing relative to other assets
9. Goal-based comparison of assets
10. Relationship triggers

1. Efficient and smart advisory
2. Dashboard
3. Timeline and history
4. Useful push notifications

TASK FLOWS

During brainstorming for solving this problem, we defined the product experience as a super-set of different experiences. In this case, we want to make learning and support experience an inherent part of the overall experience for the user to use this product to explore and purchase investment products and believe they can achieve their goals quicker.

GENERIC INVESTMENT FLOW

1. A flow which a user goes through to complete their investments
2. This is a generic flow and not specific to this product.
3. A common flow for any purchasing decision goes through Discovery, Research, Choose, Purchase phases.

ONBOARDING FLOW

1. Welcoming user to the product and preparing them psychologically to believe that this is the product they want to use.
2. Giving the user a stronger sense of control when it comes to interacting with the app brings in a feeling of emotional satisfaction
3. Assumably creating a product that people just 'get' within a few seconds after looking at it
4. Having a good onboarding makes sure that users start to have a sense of trust and satisfaction resulting in better user retention and finally good business

REGISTRATION FLOW

1. Registration flow is used for collecting identity data from user where they will want to invest their time and money.
2. It becomes easier for the user to register on a product once they start putting their trust into it. A strong onboarding process makes the registration process very simple and increases the conversion rate for the product.

USER LOGIN FLOW

1. Login flow enables users to enter and experience the app as a registered member.
2. A one-tap login is essential for users to save their brain resources for other important actions and decisions to make (especially in this product).

USER KYC FLOW

1. 'Know Your Customer’ is a type of registration needed as per the mandates from different authorities in India which need users to provide their official identity documents to verify the authenticity of users and their legal validation
2. It's very important to keep this process as easy and as quick as possible to stop users from having anxiety and gain more cognitive freedom as possible.
3. Practically user expects KYC to be tiresome by default (owing to their previous experiences), so creating a delightful flow will be emotionally rewarding and will work as an advantage for the product's success.
4. KYC process generally collects important data from users which makes it a critical part of user registration. We want to convert this critical part of registration into the task as simple as buying candy from the corner store.

PRODUCT DISCOVERY FLOW

1. Enabling users to search for the investment products to purchase in an delightful to interact and easy to understand way.
2. Users need to be able to understand and discover the product depending on their goals and economic capabilities.
3. Assistance from the advisory is needed to discovering the right products at the right time.

INVESTMENT SETUP FLOW

1. Setting up an investment strategy for users without them getting confused and distracted
2. Smart assistance helps them make the right decisions and users are guided through the setup process with a clear idea about their navigation status.
3. Decision making without any cognitive load is a crucial experience to have for users.

PURCHASE AND PAYMENT FLOW

1. A distraction-free payment flow makes sure the user completes the purchase cycle and enables the user to seamlessly explore more investing opportunities.
2. Converting the legal constraints (in payments) into opportunities and giving users a comfortable payment choice.

HELP AND SUPPORT FLOW

1. Efficient help and support framework creates a strong foundation for other processes to function smoothly.
2. A smart advisory understands each user and their functional as well as emotional needs.
3. Providing users different options to seek help gives them more control over the product

COMMUNICATION FLOW

1. Communication is an important part of building trust in users. User trusting a product with their efforts and hard-earned money is bound to succeed.
2. User needs to feel that their voice is being heard and responded to at each step. Users giving suggestions for making the product better are opportunities for the product to understand more about users.
3. Communication needs to be honest and useful.
4. Strong and efficient communication helps in building user confidence.

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION FLOW

1. System configuration flow enables users to customize the product experience according to their comforts and expectations.
2. An easy to use system configuration process helps the user to make the product their own.

ACTIVITY MONITORING FLOW

1. Activity monitoring is about user control and system transparency.
2. It should give users clear visibility of their past activities, transactions, investment performance and more.

OFFBOARDING FLOW

1. The offboarding flow goes hand-in-hand with the user onboarding flow. At this point, we have an opportunity to create a lasting impression on the user's mental model by creating a benchmark in user experience.
2. Providing users transparency into system functions and flexibility to get out of the system depending on their wish will make the experience emotionally rewarding (even if the user has decided to quit using the service).
3. Making an outgoing user happy increasing our chances of retaining current users, regaining dropped users, and new user on-boarding.

COMPLETE APP EXPERIENCE

1. Integration of all the flows for different elements and functions to create complete product experience.
2. The expectation is building a solution that accomplishes one goal perfectly rather than a mediocre with multiple features.
3. When things go just the way anticipated, it brings a feeling of emotional and psychological delight.
4. Complete focus on the user's main foal.

TASK FLOW SKETCHING

CARD SORTING

We used hybrid card-sorting methods to understand information design perceptions from a group of experienced as well as a novice user of financial-tech mobile applications. 

A total of 63 cards contained various elements ranging from button names, links to different section names which forms the organizational structure for a mobile application related to finance and investment needs.

USER 1

USER 2

Profile

• He was well experienced and expert with the concepts of mobile application development
• He had been familiar with the functioning of banking systems and used mobile applications for doing financial investments before.

Observations

• He categorized the cards based on their functionalities as well as their locations in a flow.
• He was able to well visualize a mobile product with which he would be happy to use.
• Being an expert in the domain, these group classifications will be helpful for us to design the backbone structure of the product.

Profile

• Similar to user-1, user-2 was also experienced with using mobile applications for banking and buying investments.
• He classified the groups based on their relative positioning in the application as well as the relevant functions.

Observations

• With his experience of using mobile applications, his thought process was quite clear and explained along with categorizing the cards.
• Other than the classifications he made for the cards, he also explained some other possibilities for grouping them depending on different tasks.
• He could easily identify Google/Facebook options for logging into the product.

USER 3

Profile

• This user had been using mobile applications for a long time on Android, but never used a financial product.
• As per his knowledge, he was experienced with how good website layouts are designed and started thinking from that perspective.
• He had used online banking websites before, but never experienced a mobile application for the same.
• Considering his lack of experience with mobile applications and also little awareness about investment concepts makes a good understanding of a new user

Observations

• He focussed himself in classifying the cards in the form of a layout, and further where would the elements appear in the flow.
• Like others he didn't keep 'Google/Facebook' card in a login category, instead, a 'share' section seemed better for that card.
• He emphatically explained the need for explaining users about how the application works initially before the user is taken inside the working of the product.
• Many jargons related to finance field were not understandable in the first attempt and needed to ask clarifying doubts.
• Initially, he kept all the cards related to financial terms unattended, to remove the confusion and worked with the familiar terms.

USER 4

Profile

• User-4 had used a banking application for mobile before, but never experienced a product used for financial investments.

Observations

• He was classifying the cards in the form of relative groups, without thinking about flow for the activity.
• Like other users, he also thought that the high-level card in each group would be their group names.
• He found it hard to categorize specific cards that were related to financial concepts and also had some jargon written on them.
• For this user too, Google/Facebook was prompt to share something and kept the card along with referral grouping.
• As a user new to these concepts, it would be difficult for them to identify the navigation and proper flow if provided with harder elements

INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

Building Information Architecture is a crucial step in designing the information arrangement and flow for the system. We sketched out rough ideas for the information design after deciding on the content categories and the task flows.

Changes since FITSIP IA v1

•  Tab sequence on the bottom navigation bar is changed from ‘Dashboard - How it works - My Account - My updates’ to ‘Dashboard- My Account - My Updates - How it works’ to improve sequential importance within the flow
• Architecture focus is concentrated on ‘FITSIP Dashboard’ which makes a part of the App Dashboard as found on the first navigation tab
• Independent module for eKYC in ‘My Account’ section
• Market Updates and Recommendations in ‘My Updates’ section
• ‘Help’ module defined

FITSIP Dashboard

• Information about specific Goal, it’s Target Amount, and investment term defined by the user
• Update about investments and time remaining to reach the target amount
• Information about their actual investments and related investment funds
• System recommendations (or tip) to speed up their investment progress to achieve the goal faster
• Payment history about their investments
• Clear information about what they can do more with the fund
• Option to change/update their activities related to their goals and investments
• Option to opt-out of the investment scheme

MODULAR ARCHITECTURE

This system is designed is made in a completely modular architecture. Both App UI elements and information flow can be rearranged as per the need arises depending on the future elements to be added to the FITSIP mobile application. As planned, 'FITSIP' is just an inaugural module of the larger '5nance' mobile application and the Information Architecture will be able to adapt to all the future modules which will be added subsequently in parallel to the FITSIP module.

Here in the graphics, the system is made of a stack of technology or rather functional modules and any modification done to the Information Architecture will create a new system that should be equally valid and functioning as all the different functional task flows are designed to perform work in parallel.

WIREFRAMES

UI DESIGN AND PROTOTYPE

Onboarding
and Registration

FITSIP
Investment Setup

eKYC Process

Purchase and
Payment Setup

FITSIP Portfolio
and Dashboard

FITSIP App
UI Elements

COMPLETE APP EXPERIENCE