Stash Financial Cryptocurrency
Project Duration:
Client:
Tools:
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Overview
Stash Financial, Inc., or simply Stash, is an American financial technology and financial services company based in New York, NY. The company operates a web platform and mobile apps, incrementally allowing users to invest in small amounts of stocks, ETFs and curated funds.
PROBLEM
Stash is potentially limiting its market and revenue share by not offering users the option to invest in direct cryptocurrencies.
APPROACH & DELIVERABLES
The objective was to create a practical and integrated feature for users to invest in cryptocurrency tokens on the Stash mobile platform. Deliverables for this study are to showcase this new feature with high-fidelity prototypes.
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Process
The process for this project includes the following:
User Interviews and findings
Competitive Analysis
Use Cases
High Level Design Goals
User Persona
Site Map
Task Flow
Style Tile
Usability Test
Affinity Map
Iterations
Final Prototype
Research
USER INTERVIEWS AND FINDINGS
I conducted user interviews and competitive analysis to acquire additional insight into the fintech space.
Firstly user interviews were used to understand people's investment endeavors, habits, and motivations. I also wanted to assess users' frustrations and limitations in using competing investment platforms and their concerns and knowledge of cryptocurrencies.
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Interview Findings
Motivation
- To grow their financial wealth and diversify their assets.
- To invest in high market cap crypto tokens.
- To gain more knowledge about how cryptocurrencies work and differ.
- Ease-of-use and efficient investment platform with an excess of companies, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies to invest in.
Pain Points
- Limited to speculation and lack of knowledge surrounding crypto.
- Lack of investment and analysis tools.
- Navigate to different applications to find insights, news for companies and currencies
- Not having access to an exchange of crypto tokens.
Primary Goals
- Grow financial wealth.
- Invest in any company of choice.
- Portfolio management tools.
- Trading and analytical tools.
- To be educated on what there investing in.
- Ease-of-use in investment applicaiton
- Have access to a multitude of cryptocurrencies.
Competitive Analysis:
Stash has been around since 2015 and is loved by users. To build a new feature into the app, I conducted an app audit to understand Stash’s branding, features, and UI. Once I had a good understanding of the app itself, I began comparing what competitors were doing.
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Summary of COMPETITIVE ANALYSIS:
My competitive analysis showed that all competitors share a well-designed interface amongst their applications. Whereas Robinhood is the most used and popular interface, it lacks many resources that other competitors like Webull and E-Trade offer. E-Trade provides the most robust features and tools, such as news, research analytics, and stock screeners.
Summary of research findings:
This research study led me to validate many assumptions and increased my awareness of the fintech market.
People invest in public markets to increase their net worth and diversify their asset pool. This diversification stemmed two-fold from the growth of technology and alternate investing methods, and a new generation of investors. However, the rise of digital assets such as cryptocurrencies and NFTs creates a speculative market where prospective investors should still be educated and wary.
Synthesize
USE CASES
“I want to be able to add a cryptocurrency to my assest pool”
"Cryptocurrency ETFs seem like a safer option, but where would I go to find out more?”
“I want an all-in-one investment platform where I can learn and invest in stocks, ETFs, and digital currencies.”
HIGH LEVEL DESIGN GOALS
Needs
- Separate crypto investment tab.
- Have tokens broken down into sectors.
- Stash curated crypto categorizes.
- Trading chart for each token.
- Similiar currencies are offered on each token details page.
- Have an abundant amount of currencies for a user to invest in.
- Show currency value to purchased dollar amount during the checkout process.
Motivations
- Users can easily navigate from stock, ETFs, and crypto
- Giving Stashers to explore currencies in areas of interest.
- Categorizing tokens by the company makes people more secure and does some work for people who are not sure what to invest in.
- Users want options to invest in currencies they feel inclined to purchase.
- Stashers need to see the value or conversion of how much of a token they bought.
USER PERSONA
I created a user persona to symbolize all my research findings. Crafting this persona helped me focus on my user's goals and frustrations in this space.
Ideation
SITEMAP
Based on my audit of the Stash mobile application, I created an overview of how Stash organized its information.
I organized my findings from the app audit and created a site map to establish an efficient path where I could seamlessly integrate a new "crypto" feature.
User task flowchart
The implementation I settled on was to include a crypto section on the investment tab of the Stash app. I had a couple of questions regarding the process one would take to find, select and purchase a specific token. After internal discussion and further analysis, I decided upon this user flow. Here a user can navigate through their portfolio to find a token or the invest navigation tab. Once there, a user can search for a particular currency or get recommendations.
UI DESIGN
incorporating an existing design
I started my designs by creating a style tile for Stash Financial. This allowed me to ensure that my feature would look and feel like their application.
HI-FIDELITY SCREENS
I created high-fidelity mockups in Figma to develop an interactive prototype.
Purchasing Bitcoin
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Checking your investments
Explore Crypto
TEST & ITERATION
usability Testing
After finishing the visual design, I created a prototype to test the functionality and integration of the added crypto feature in Figma. 5 users participated in this test.
💡 DESIGN DECISION
I chose to do a proctored usability test to ensure that the participants followed the tasks and requirements for the test. I also wanted to be there in person to answer any questions or receive first-hand feedback.
Task 1: Purchasing bitcoin
Task instructions
You’ve been using Stash Financial app to invest in stocks, ETFs, and cryptocurrencies. You heard from a news article that Tesla will now be accepting Bitcoin as a payment method. Being an apt investor, you decide to purchase some Bitcoin. Find Bitcoin, purchase and add it to your personal portfolio.
testing notes
Consistent with Stash's design, participants found navigating between screens a straightforward process. However, I note that some participants took a different route when purchasing Bitcoin. For example, some navigated to the personal; portfolio first and searched, while others went to the investing tab.
Task completion rate
Task 2: Checking your investments
Task instructions
You just purchased some Bitcoin. From the homepage, locate all your investments in your personal portfolio. View just the stock in your investments. Then, view just the crypto in your investments.
testing notes
Although participants could complete this task successfully, there was some confusion in the “All investments” screen. Participants were confused with the existing dropdown filter and the implemented Stock, ETFs, and Crypto pill tabs.
Task completion rate
Task 3: Explore Crypto
Task instructions
You find some success investing in Bitcoin and want to explore more potential digital currencies. However, still being hesitant and wary of the high volatility of investing in crypto tokens, you turn to Stash to recommend other options. Find and get recommendations for crypto.
testing notes
There were no issues for participants in completing this test. Upon navigating to the personal portfolio, participants could find the recommendations page.
Task completion rate
Iterating on design
During this usability testing, participants brought a couple of issues to light in the prototype's functionality and the implemented design. First, 80% of the pain points in the usability testing came from the functionality of the prototype. For example, many participants selected the Invest tab on the navigation bar and wanted to choose the funding source during the checkout process. The main area of change that needed to be addressed was on the "All investments" screen, where there were issues with the existing filtering option and the implemented filtering option.
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Task 1: Purchasing Bitcoin
Functionality of nav menu and funding source
- 75% of participants selected the bottom “Invest” tab on the navigation bar instead of the prototype flow of choosing a personal portfolio.
- To solve this, I also built out the option for participants to get to the investment page by directly clicking on the “Invest” tab on the navigation bar.
- Some participants wanted to alter the funding source during the checkout process. As a result, it became a pain point in Task 2 of the prototype.
- To fix this pain point, I built out screens to allow users to change their funding source if inclined to do so.
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Task 2: Checking your investments
Filtering options in "My investments" screen
- Participants were confused about what filter to interact with first. The pre-existing dropdown filter indicated one filter, which would be confusing if another second filter option, such as a pill tab, was introduced.
- I reduced the attention drawn by the tab's original design by modifying the tab size and color. I also changed the current dropdown filter by making it a button for users to select different filtering options in one input.
After going through a second usability test, all functionality issues found in the first test were resolved. However, there was still some confusion amongst users with the filter system on the "My investments" screen.
I devised two new filter designs and had 10 new participants complete Task 3 with the proposed solutions.
Filter A
Filter B
The A/B Test found that Filter B was the clear winner and the preferred filtering option for users. As stated by participants in this test, Filter B was more intuitive, easy to use, and understandable. In addition, the participants found the tabs “Stock, ETFs, Crypto” more effective as they were on the same page and easier to find.
final prototype
conclusion
This project taught me how to work within the existing product and design patterns. Since users are already familiar with the preexisting design system, any variation or break in color, stroke weight, typography, and structure could hurt usability.
One challenge I overcame during research was keeping Stash’s vision with the long-term growth wealth of its Stashers while incorporating a highly volatile wild west of digital currencies. I reflect that the design structure I built is an integrated feature. However, the specific offerings of structuring access to digital currencies can only be answered by Stash and its stakeholders.
When I started this project, I assumed that many investors were satisfied with investing in only a select higher market cap cryptocurrencies. However, my research led me to see that investors want access to as many tokens as well as the tools surrounding digital currencies, such as crypto wallets. While this may not be realistic for a platform like Stash, it’s good to have the options to navigate from traditional investments to the crypto broker to crypto exchange. Stash can maneuver to many different points in this ever-changing financial landscape.
