StockUp
HELPING BEGINNER INVESTORS BY EDUCATING AND INFORMING
StockUp is an app concept for young adults who are interested in investing their money but do not know much about the stock market. Many young adults understand the benefits of investing their money but do not know where to start. This app includes modules, quizzes, market news, and videos to help educate the user on investing and personal finance. StockUp also allows users to trade stocks and displays investment information. In addition to the app, an email campaign, a poster, a postcard, apparel, and business cards were designed as promotional marketing tools.
YEAR 2021
ROLE Visual Design, User Experience, Branding & Identity
I recently started learning about the stock market and how to invest my money for my future. I realized it’s a lot easier to read or listen to someone talk about investing, but actually doing it is a totally different story. I had no clue where to start, what stocks to invest in, how much money I should put in. I ended up wasting years just trying to learn investment best practices, and in turn I probably lost out on a lot of opportunities to grow my money.
I scoured the internet and the App Store looking for any kind of tool that might teach me about personal finance or investing in the stock market. I came across multiple options throughout my time researching but they either only focused on budgeting (Acorn, Stash, and Mint) or had minimal educational information (TD Ameritrade and Robinhood).
Getting Down and Dirty
To solve this problem myself, I decided to listen to what others in the same boat I was in had to say. I determined that the audience I would target should be young adults who understand some benefits to investing but don’t know where to begin. I spoke with several individuals that fit into this group to get multiple different perspectives on the subject. I learned how much they knew about the stock market, whether they invest, how they choose a stock to invest in, what kind of investor they are, and what they would like to become more knowledgeable about.
“I definitely think it’s a good idea to invest and I should probably be doing it like, right now. I don’t really know anything about it though, so I’m scared to invest money just to lose it.”
— Quote from interview
To get a better idea of what other apps are doing to help their users invest or save their money, I listed out their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. I chose to look at Robinhood and Acorn, which are two investment apps, as well as Mint and Stash, two personal finance and budgeting apps. None of these were an exact match to the app I wanted to create, but they were close enough and have similar users.
With this market research in mind, I made a few observations of what made these other apps successful:
Well structured navigation
Encourages low-risk investing
‘Learn by doing’ model
Provides information that is easy to understand
Main Objective
My goal was to create an engaging app that allows users to both learn about and invest in the stock market.
Branding
First, I wanted to get the branding identity out of the way before I started on anything else. I knew I wanted to go for a more colorful and playful feeling, but without it being too overwhelming. I decided to name the app StockUp, and thought the logo should look sturdy, reliable, and portray upward growth.
User Experience
Based on the interviews and the market research I conducted, I had a pretty good idea of what actions and features were most beneficial. I wanted to create a space for users to choose what they wanted to focus on–learning or investing. However, I still wanted the app to be seamless, simple to use, and informative but still be engaging and fun to interact with.
I sketched out multiple wireframe ideas for the app. At this stage, I mostly wanted to figure out the best way to incorporate two dashboards to learn and to invest from. This concept was important for me to flesh out early on, and I knew the transition from one dashboard to the other should be as easy as possible.
Results
After weeks of developing, I accomplished my goal of building an app concept that allows users to trade stocks, view investment information, read relevant stock market news, take modules that teach major investment topics, and test their knowledge. In addition to the app, I designed multiple other touchpoints that may exist with StockUp such as an email campaign, a poster, a postcard, financial statements, and business cards as promotional marketing tools that may benefit users.
