Property Hub is a business that aims to demystify property investment and help individuals plan for their financial future. They approached us to help them create a property investment app and launch it into the market.
Their new app needed to enable its users to invest in the property market and build a property portfolio. Much like popular investment apps like Money Box and Nutmeg, Property Hub’s goal for their mobile app, Portfolio, was to make investing accessible to everybody.
- Lead Time:
- 3 Months
- Sector:
- Fintech & Banking
- Demographic:
- High Net Worth Individuals
- Target Type:
- B2C
- App Goal:
- Launch a mobile investment app into the market
- Services
- Research, UX Design, Mobile App Design
The challenge
Property Hub challenged us to create a brand new mobile app for their investment platform. They were entering the market as a challenger investment app and needed to create a seamless user experience that would enable users to confidently invest.
As a financial product, the app needed to be compliant with financial regulation and conduct identity checks on users as part of the sign up process. A common challenge with Fintech products is the drop off rate of sign ups while verification takes place. We needed to create an onboarding flow that would capture and retain the interest of investors during the verification process.
- The approach
- Client Workshops
- Research & Discovery Phase
- Low Fidelity Mobile Prototype
- Design to Development Handover
- The schedule
- 1 x Senior UX Designer
- 1 x Senior UI Designer
- 1 x Product Manager
Research & discovery
Our UX team critically reviewed a number of investment apps to gain insight into the products available in the market, what the competition was doing well, and where we could add value to users that would enable us to capture a significant piece of the market upon launch.
We assessed direct competitors of Property Hub, as well as mobile apps available in the broader investment and financial markets such as Apple Pay and Transfer Wise. We reviewed the way that competitors onboarded new users and led them through KYC verification. Our research also assessed the user journeys for key investment actions such as depositing and withdrawing funds and managing a portfolio.
Onboarding flow
Property Hub’s new mobile onboarding flow is designed to maximise sign ups while ensuring that investors fully understand the financial risks associated with property investment. We ensured that the mobile app design meets financial regulation and the requirements from the brief.
A number of verification steps were required within the onboarding process. Our team reduced the friction associated with verification by summarising the onboarding steps at the beginning of the sign up flow and providing progress updates throughout to keep users engaged.
We utilised Google, Apple and Facebook sign up functionality so users could autocomplete a number of fields. We verified user identities using the KYC tool, and integrated with popular banking apps to transition users straight from the verification process into depositing funds and getting started within the app.
The dashboard
The dashboard is the starting point for all user flows and our challenge was to provide clear signposting to all of the possible actions while keeping the interface clean and simple.
In collaboration with the Property Hub team, we created an information hierarchy that prioritised in-app actions based on their popularity and value. This hierarchy formed the basis of the dashboard, showcasing portfolio value and change at the very top of the page alongside key call to actions.
The design
The app design and structure is clean and intuitive, prioritising the quality of the user journeys and clarity of information. We took design inspiration from property apps such as Airbnb and investment platforms like Coinbase to create a familiar look and feel that investors are able to use intuitively.
Sticky Navigation
The mobile app incorporates a sticky navigation at the bottom of the screen. The navigation uses modal pop ups to showcase key information before directing users to the next page.
Building a portfolio
Investors are able to view their portfolio and read about the properties. They can see their invested capital, cash balance and pending capital.
The development handover
Our UX team delivered an on-site handover to the Property Hub development team to ensure that the app developers had everything they needed to represent the designs in code.
Our design team was available throughout the development process to answer any questions and provide feedback on the codified designs.
