Investment Platform Redesign

NDA-Safe Case Study

Confidentiality Notice

This case study describes design work completed under a non-disclosure agreement. All details have been generalised or anonymised to respect client confidentiality. The focus is on design approach and decision-making rather than proprietary product specifics.

Product Context

This project involved redesigning a regulated consumer investment platform in East Africa. The platform enables retail users to access multiple investment options through a single mobile interface.

The engagement followed stakeholder dissatisfaction with an earlier vendor-built experience that lacked cultural and contextual alignment. The objective was to redesign the user experience to improve trust, clarity, and usability while operating within a regulated financial environment.

Problem Framing

Digital investment products introduce long-horizon risk and anxiety. Users are less concerned with speed and more concerned with:

Trust in the platform holding their money
Transparency around fees and actions
Confidence that funds remain accessible
Clarity around what they are consenting to

Any ambiguity erodes trust quickly in regulated financial products.

Role and Scope

UI and UX Designer, working collaboratively with product and engineering leadership.

Design ownership included:

Information architecture
Interaction design
Visual system alignment
Flow simplification under regulatory constraints

Product intent was defined collaboratively; execution and UX judgment were owned independently.

Contraints

Regulated financial environment requiring explicit consent and disclosures
Compressed delivery timeline
Limited budget for primary user research
Reliance on internal customer insights rather than field studies

No proprietary investment logic or performance claims were in scope for design.

Key Design Decisions

Explicit, Sequenced Consent

User consent is required at clearly defined points in the journey. Disclosures are surfaced contextually, not buried in settings or legal pages.

Reasoning: Trust is reinforced when users understand what they are agreeing to and when.

Wallet-First Mental Model

The interface is organised around a neutral “wallet” concept that anchors balances, activity, and available actions.

Reasoning: A wallet is a familiar abstraction that reduces perceived complexity while maintaining clarity between cash and investments.

Progressive Verification

Identity verification steps are sequenced after initial access rather than acting as a hard gate.

Reasoning: Reduces early abandonment while still meeting regulatory requirements. Accessibility considerations were incorporated for edge cases.

Intentional Information Hierarchy

Primary investment products are surfaced first. Secondary instruments are available but deprioritised in the layout.

Reasoning: Interfaces inevitably communicate priorities. The hierarchy reflects business reality without restricting user choice.

Visibility and Reversibility

Key actions such as deposits, withdrawals, transfers, and record access are equally visible. Balances can be obscured by the user.

Reasoning: Users distrust systems where money feels trapped or opaque. Symmetry of actions builds confidence.

Information Architecture

The dashboard answers three immediate questions:

Current position
Available actions
Recent activity

Advanced configuration and secondary actions are grouped away from the primary decision surface. Educational content was intentionally excluded from the initial release.

Visual Direction

Conservative, brand-aligned palette
Minimal motion
No visual urgency or performance dramatization
Light and dark modes supported

The interface avoids emotional manipulation around financial outcomes.

Validation & Outcome

The redesigned experience was approved by stakeholders with minimal iteration and released to production.

Post-launch, the platform demonstrated sustained user adoption growth. No design changes were required following regulatory or legal review.

No internal metrics or performance figures are disclosed.

Trade-offs

No in-app education modules
No advisory features
Limited primary research due to delivery constraints

These exclusions prioritised clarity, trust, and speed to launch.

Reflection

Designing investment products is less about simplifying finance and more about simplifying perception. Users tolerate complexity when systems are transparent, predictable, and respectful of their agency.

A key learning was that even financially literate users benefit from restrained interfaces that avoid urgency and over-explanation.

Selected Work

A focused selection of product work across fintech, property, and operational platforms. These projects involve multi-role systems, complex workflows, and live production environments.