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Overview
Individual
Fintech
Investment
My Role
Facilitate UX Research including interviews independently
low- and high-fidelity prototyping
Iteration on feedback
Timeline
3 weeks
Polarized risk profile
By Interviewing 3 university students and 2 financial advisors to understand investor behavior, risk tolerance, and decision-making in personal finance, it is found that individual investors tend to polarize their self-assessed risk profiles, often identifying as either conservative or aggressive. Few investors accurately assess where they fall on the risk spectrum, leading to mismatches between their perceived and actual risk tolerance, and potential missteps in personal financial decisions.
Perceived Risk Profile
Actual Risk Profile
Conservative
Aggressive
Reasoning & Define
"You never know how it goes and I'm not trying to play that risk right now. Even if you think it's definitely going to go this way. Imagine if it doesn't, right? I don't have that amount of financial wiggle room right now to do that kind of to make those kind of moves."
Quotes
"Be very confident in my investing decisions so that not only are you showing me like just the financial reports, I want something to tell me indicators in this report that give me confidence that this is a good stock to invest in."
Risk-averse
What
Lack confidence
Unable to measure risk
Why
Lack trusted information
Qualitative risk measurement
Why
Lack information transparency
Investor needs a way to measure and match portfolio risk with their risk tolerance because unmatching risk may lead to frustration and potential missteps in investment decisions.
HMW build awareness of investing intention and goal for investors?
HMW enhance investor's confidence in investment decisions?
HMW help investors match portfolio risk with their risk tolerance?
Ideation & Wireframing
The primary ideas include a dashboard that visualizes both the portfolio’s risk profile and the investor’s risk tolerance, highlighting the degree of alignment between them. Key visualization components can be a pie chart, bento grids, or a tabular listing. Additionally, the portfolio list offers two viewing modes: one focused on revenue, and the other focused on risk exposure. This dual-mode approach allows investors to monitor both revenue and risk simultaneously, supporting a more balanced, hybrid investment strategy.
Challenges
Visualizing the portfolio’s risk profile, the investor’s risk tolerance, and the degree of alignment between them is a journey of navigating ambiguity and finding balance. While the initial concept focused on presenting risk using precise numerical values, usability testing revealed that plain numbers provided little meaningful insight and added unnecessary cognitive load. On the other hand, overly simplified labels such as “conservative” or “aggressive” also failed to meet user needs. Striking the right balance between delivering informative content and ensuring accessibility has been a key focus throughout this iterative design process.
Plan Module Design
Interviews with financial advisors revealed that investment planning plays a crucial role in boosting investor confidence and shaping more disciplined investment behaviors. Based on insights from usability testing and iterative design, the planning module is developed with an intuitive and clean interface, allowing investors to refine their plans throughout their investment journey and easily review and track their progress.
Reflection
This 3-week design sprint involved a fast-paced cycle of UX research, prototyping, and iteration, significantly strengthening my research, design, and project management skills. However, limited interviews and lack of financial knowledge created considerable ambiguity during the define phase, making it challenging to extract core user needs from the empathy maps and interview notes. By building more financial knowledge, engaging with more stakeholders and testing early ideas and wireframes, I was able to clarify the direction of the project and move forward with greater confidence.
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