Discovery & Research

The existing onboarding journey for investments suffered from high drop-off rates and product mismatch. Many users:

Selected savings products when they were seeking long-term investments
Didn’t understand terms like “unit trust” or “capital guaranteed”
Felt overwhelmed by technical language and lack of guidance
This often led to confusion, mistrust, and abandoned flows — especially among first-time investors.

We needed to build a goal-based, educational, and confidence-inspiring experience that could:

Differentiate between savings and investment products
Guide users through goal-setting
Suggest appropriate funds
Empower decision-making with forecasting tools

We conducted competitive benchmarking across major investment platforms, uncovering key insights such as:

The power of conversational journeys that educate and assist
Use of lifestyle imagery and icons to create relatable product stories
Importance of clear product categories (e.g., short-term vs. long-term)
Gaps in performance tracking and cross-platform consistency
A lack of easily accessible calculators for decision-making

We also formulated "How Might We" questions to guide solution ideation, including:

How might we help users choose the right product based on their goals?
How might we make product language simpler and more approachable?
How might we integrate calculators and forecasts to improve decision-making?
How might we unify the app and desktop experiences?

UX Approach & Design

We designed primarily for two key segments:

Novice Investors: Cautious and unfamiliar with investment jargon. Need clarity, handholding, and trust signals.
Intermediate Investors: Goal-oriented and tech-savvy but need better tools for decision-making and long-term planning.

Across both, we uncovered core needs:

Understandable language
Goal-driven planning tools
Visual feedback on potential outcomes
Optional access to advisors for reassurance

We reimagined the experience from the ground up, starting with:

Persona-led journey mapping to understand life-stage goals (e.g. retirement, education, buying a home)
Interactive product education layered into onboarding
Goal-based investment planning, where users could select or define their goal, timeline, and contribution frequency
A fund suggestion engine to match product options to their chosen goal
Embedded calculators to simulate returns and risks
A redesigned dashboard showing performance tracking and progress toward each goal

We paid special attention to UX writing, ensuring investment terms were explained clearly with supporting

User Testing & Validation (Maze)

Partnering with Nedbank’s research team, we conducted remote usability testing using Maze. I helped:

Define the scenarios we wanted to test
Facilitate the sessions
Analyze feedback and behavior patterns

Key Insights:

Users read all the educational content — showing high engagement and appetite for investment knowledge
Confidence around unit trusts significantly improved
The forecast graph was a major highlight, with users calling it “motivating” and “exciting”
Some users wanted the ability to pause and save goals before committing
Others requested clearer graph labels and access to human advisors for reassurance

Competitive Analysis

We studied major investment platforms (Allan Gray, EasyEquities, etc.) and benchmarked:

Product categorization
Onboarding flows
Performance tracking
Use of calculators
Conversational UX
Findings revealed opportunities to:
Improve language simplicity
Highlight return vs. risk trade-offs
Visually group products by goal or time horizon
Add education without friction

Journey Mapping & Ideation

Working in FigJam, I mapped the redesigned journey:

Select or define your investment goal
Choose either a target amount or goal date
Use a calculator to simulate contributions and timelines
Get matched with fund suggestions
Visualize projected returns
Commit to a product or save the goal for later

We also crafted UX writing guidelines, microcopy, and navigation logic to reduce cognitive load at every step.

"I think it's lot of information... If you don't know much about [investing]... it gives you a lot of things to think about. But I think it's quite good [thejexplanations... I don't think when I signed up for investments (in the past), I had this much information to be honest with you." -

User

UI Design Highlights

✅ Flexible Goal Setup

Users could choose between starting with a goal amount or goal date, and the journey would adapt accordingly.

✅ Fund Suggestion Engine

Instead of showing all unit trusts at once, we filtered and recommended funds aligned with the user’s goal, timeline, and risk tolerance.

✅ Investment Forecasting

We introduced an interactive projection graph that showed potential returns across weak, average, and strong market conditions — helping users visualize long-term impact.

✅ Save & Return Later

Users could now save their goals and shortlisted funds without committing upfront — reducing pressure and improving completion rates.

✅ Advisor Support Prompts

Integrated chat and callback options gave users the option to connect with a banker or Enbi (Nedbank's AI assistant) for additional help.

“Now I feel like I actually know what I’m doing… Nedbank has made it very easy.”

— UAT Participant, NM

“[The forecast graph] made me excited. It gives me the motivation to actually invest.”

— UAT Participant, SM

Outcome & Value

Testing showed increased user confidence in choosing investment products
Users better understood the difference between savings and investments
The prototype received positive internal reviews and was prioritized for phased rollout
The experience is currently being refined and extended into other investment journeys (e.g., retirement and tax-free savings)
The research directly shaped the backlog and future UX roadmap

The Problem