Redesigning the Smallcase home page for improved discoverability
- Made for
- smallcase, an Indian fintech company with ~10 million users, providing baskets of stocks to reduce the barrier of entry into the stock market.
- Made in
- 3 months
- Responsibilities
- User Research, UX Design, Competitive Analysis, Wireframing and Iterative Prototyping
Why redesign the home page
The existing home page lacked clear tools to guide discoverability of relevant investment products.
Limited & static suggestions
Unpersonalized & repetitive options
Niche and complex feature
So I made
A personalized home page that guides product discovery through relevant investment options.
Areas of focus
The goal of the redesign was to address the evolving nature of users' investment needs by providing options for each stage.
Explore
Learn about the market
Start with basic low-risk investments
Diversify
Go for higher returns
Invest in niche themes
Maintain
Maintain portfolio regularly
Update ratios according to goals
Most impactful areas to address to increase revenue
Decoding user research
After conducting 8 user interviews, I found users, like Josh, wanted better guidance that facilitated their investment journey.
This is Josh
A 27 year old engineer, can invest ₹20k per month
Started investing with Mutual Funds
He wants to build wealth for his future, for which…
He wants to diversify with stock baskets that give high returns
He would like know popular trends and themes to invest in
He needs guidance on how to start investing with the platform
On logging in, Josh is looking to start with something with low stakes.
The first fold of the website contains portfolios that are simple bets to begin investing with.
According to user research, new users trust smallcase’s suggestions, so we showcased a pre-set list of beginner-friendly investments.
Why these portfolios are suitable for beginners
Social proof to highlight the popularity amongst new investors.
Users nudged to start with watchlisting, which is a low friction action.
He explores various portfolios and even watchlists some to track their progress.
When he revisits the website, he will be able to track portfolios that he has engaged with and can choose to invest in them.
Placed in first fold, most relevant suggestions
The portfolio’s growth since interacting to track performance for faster decision making.
More concrete actions shown as the user is familiar with these products.
After Josh is comfortable with the platform, he wants to know the most in-demand portfolios.
I added a “Trending” section that ranks the top portfolios of the platform based on their performance and popularity.
Tabs to let users interact and look at multiple lists
Progressive disclosure used to spark interest in trending smallcases
Tabular layout allows easy comparison of returns
Josh has recently learned that India’s infrastructure boom is a great theme to invest in for the future.
For exploring specific investment themes or ideas, I introduced a “Collections” section that aids categorical discovery of investments.
Tabs to allow quick navigation for easier comparison
Nudges that highlight the unique features of the portfolio.
All portfolios shown up front instead of hiding them behind a touchpoint.
Josh has also started following some investment managers who provided portfolios on smallcase.
Surfacing star-managers makes their followers’ discovery journey much smoother.
Investment advisors in India often garner a big following on social media. Marketing analysis informed us that their followers follow them to the platform and look for their products.
Other additions to the page
This redesign also gave the team an opportunity to better surface other product offerings.
We showcased the platform’s various affordances to a user in a way that's most relevant to them.
This helped promote products like external investment tracking, loans alerts, etc. to a broader audience.
User new to the website
Loan offerings are prioritised from a business perspective. Tools to make first investment are shown.
Invests in portfolios and tracks external investments
Enhanced loan nudge with available credit limit. Nudge to get invest alerts shown, which lets users get notified on best times to invest.
Takes a loan from smallcase
The nudge for Loans is removed. ‘Fee based smallcases’ recommended for borrowers as they are usually correlated to such products.
Loan instalment coming up
Instalment debit highlighted closer to its date.
During research, I also found that new users generally struggled to make sense of the platform.
So, I created a step-by-step guide to acclimatise new users to the concept of portfolio based investing.
Outcomes
This overhaul drove more traffic through the website, and we achieved everything we set out to...
27%
increase
in new user investments on the website
15%
increase
in subscriptions through this channel
20%
increase
in watchlisted portfolios