Scantify allows users to do investing aligned with Catholic values.
July 2022 - Sept 2022
User Research
User Experience Designer
Interaction Design
Visual Design
Designers
Product Manager
Sanctify is a newly emerging investing app aligned with Catholic values, our client IWP Capital, based in Texas, wants to attract new users and increase their user base. I was part of this project responsible to redesign the onboarding experience for this fast-growing fintech company.
The client's initial goal was to create a mobile investment platform targeted specifically towards Christian investors. This audience has unique financial needs and beliefs compared to other religious or ethnic groups. Christians often prioritize investing in alignment with their values, such as protecting human rights, animal welfare, and the environment, while avoiding industries like marijuana or firearms.
Through conversations with the client, I gained the insight that while Christians were the initial target user group, the platform should expand to serve a broader audience of conscientious investors with ethical principles beyond just the Christian faith. This "purpose-driven investing" approach caters to individuals who want to align their investments with their personal values and beliefs. As such, the onboarding should use inclusive language welcoming diverse backgrounds and belief systems, positioning the app as a platform for purpose-driven investing rather than targeting a specific religious group.
"So I rephase this project to be Design the onboarding experience for users to do PURPOSE INVESTING with an APP."
Our client faces a challenge with their financial app's user registration process. Despite needing to collect extensive information for effective account setup, they're experiencing a high dropout rate during onboarding, hindering successful user engagement. Thus, our High level goal was to design an onboarding system that encourages users to complete registration so that start further exploration.
The client situation indicates there's a tight timeline and a sense of urgency from their side. The design process and considerations revolve around accommodating the client's eagerness for quick results, like wireframes or high-fidelity designs. Testing and iterations will be conducted to achieve client satisfaction.
At the outset of the project, we were tasked with enhancing the onboarding system but lacked specific strategies. To understand the high dropout rates, I collaborated with the client's marketing team to conduct user surveys, Their backgrounds or work are affiliated with religious (Christian and Catholic) companies and organizations, including alumni of religious universities.These surveys informed the creation of user personas that guided our improvement efforts.
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Based on our surveys, we've identified several needs from both clients and users. However, a significant conflict arises because the client cannot reduce the amount of information collected from users, who in turn dislike spending excessive time on the onboarding process.
"Is there a way to design the questionnaire completion process so that it's comprehensive yet doesn't bore the users?"
With this question, I look through similar successful fintech products‘ onboarding process on the market to analyze why users prefer to use those products. I unpack the concept of a good onboarding experience and modeled for the dimensions of Visual Quality, Process Length, Company Promotion, Security Level and Information Collection and condensed several core design points that affect the onboarding experience.
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I found a successful onboarding system in a fintech app should have:
1) An appropriate process length with necessary information collection
2) A chance for the company to demonstrate their crucial features
3) Multiple information and identity protection measures
4) A vivid and pleasant interface appearance
A perfect onboarding experience should consider both the client's and users' needs.
There is a series of mandatory steps to collect personal financial information for later personalized investment advice. For verification, personal basic information, such as name, date of birth, and SSN is required during the onboarding process.
Previous research has shown that those collection steps may cause a sense of insecurity for users so they may drop off during the onboarding process due to insufficient information about the company.
Other researches show that the plainness of the visual design is also a factor that cannot meet the users' desire.
To balance the demands of both the client and users, I propose three major directions we can work on how we can make the onboarding processing encourage, secure and attractive.
(left) the old version of Sanctify
VS
(right) the new version of Sanctify
After discussing with our client, our team gathered to think of multiple elements to be included in the process and eventually settled on the following core functionalities.
For new users, answering financial questions requires energy and trust. Thus, I propose to put it in the end. Start with the easy tasks (basic info), also adds the welcome & introduction page which allows new users to know more about the product and build trust. I also recommend adding transition pages that tell which stages the users are in the onboarding process. Also, it gives users a chance to exit the process, so that they can save energy and come back to finish the steps later. The adding verification methods can help reduce the sense of insecurities. Those considerations help encourage users to complete the process. We want users to feel we are not pushing them to use the product, but after knowing what the product does, it is their choice to use the product.
Before: users only see a completion notification at the end of the entire process, having less transparency of the process length.
After: the process will be divided into three stages. Each is followed by a completion page to provide users with a certain sense of achievement psychologically.
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Before: a series of questions appear on the same page, letting users scroll up and down to fill. It easily causes users feel so much information need to be collected.
After: reducing the information density by separating questions on different pages and enhancing readability via adding visual elements and rearranging the overall layout.
Before: typical verification methods are incorporated into the process.
After: offer different verification methods to increase users' flexibility in choices and further strengthen the level of security. In addition, we include an additional explanation of the verification purpose and approach, increasing customer trust.
Before: single sign up / login page with limited information about the company or App.
After: four extra pages of App features’ demonstration with vivid illustrations, helping users get to know more about the company and product.
Before: relatively low saturation and darker colours as the background make users feel bored.
After: a higher saturation level is added to the new colour scheme, creating a more vivid sense of appearance. More importantly, it makes users feel easy to use.
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The redesign of the Sanctify app on iOS and Android has a positive impact on the personal financing experience. However, the transition from the onboarding stage to the main features section is not smooth due to the lack of collaboration between the two design teams. I believe a more smooth transfer between the two stages will significantly improve the app user experience.
In the two months after involvement in the project, the team continued to evolve and polish the visual design, as well as some main features design, such as the Home screen and the profile page, were being built.
The Sanctify app will be launched globally in 2023. Now, people can join the waitlist! It is an impressive achievement for the team, considering it was a complete redesign and rebuild from scratch.
sanctifyapp.com
the offical website illstrations are created by our team
