Robinhood is an investment app that has successfully made the stock market accessible to all people and set the precedent for easy-to-invest, commission-free trading. Not only have they revolutionized the mechanisms of trading, but they changed the game with their extreme user friendliness and killer UI. Everything about Robinhood already screams “groundbreaking,” but I thought I could take it a step further by introducing a social feature to the app. Adding a social media feature to a finance app is a pretty risky idea. However, most of Robinhood’s users have grown up in the digital age, and I truly believe that social media features may have a future with Robinhood. So, with human centered design principles in mind, I figured out how to incorporate the social features in a delicate enough way to ultimately drive up user engagement and cater to a larger audience.
Problem Statement: A relatively new investor needs reassurance that they are on the right path because they often look for the guidance of those who are more experienced than them via stock market YouTube channels, Tik Toks, Discord groups, and Reddit threads when deciding what they should invest in.
Users and audience: Robinhood users are mostly Millennial and Generation Z, with the average user being 31 years old. Through my research, I discovered that Robinhood seems to be an app for beginner investors between the ages of 18 and 40.
Roles and Responsibilities: Evaluation and research, information architecture, content strategy, user/ task flow, site mapping, wire-framing low fidelity and high fidelity designs, prototyping, usability testing, visual design, iteration and implementation.
Scope and Constraints: The scope of this project was to add a feature to an existing framework that would successfully allow the user to go through three task flows: making their profile public, following other users, and finding other user’s profiles via the leaderboard.
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Solution: The problem I uncovered in my research is that beginners have very limited resources when it comes to investing, and people tend to look to YouTube, Discord Groups, Tik Tok, Reddit, Twitter, etc. when trying to find good investments. My solution was to cut out the middleman and allow users to follow one another so that they can look at each other’s profiles and see what investments they have. The leaderboard feature will rank the top 100 Robinhood users by their return percentages, so that less experienced investors can look to see what they are invested in and hopefully learn more about why they chose certain investments. This will allow a dialogue to be opened between investors on Robinhood (rather than a third party website), ultimately making beginners feel more comfortable and driving up engagement on the app.
I needed to understand how a social media feature would fit within the Robinhood framework, and whether or not users would even be open to the idea of having their information be public. This part of the process was rather nerve wracking because I was aware that in the past discussing one’s finances was somewhat Taboo. From a personal perspective, it seemed as though Millennials and Gen Z are more open to these discussions, but I needed to be sure.
The first step I took was conducting research to see what the market was like and whether a social feature would have a place in it. I uncovered a few key pieces of information.
- 54% of 25-34 year olds have invested less than $5,000 in their lifetime
- Millennials expect higher yearly returns (close to 12%)
- Men are more likely to "keep up with their friends" when investing
- 60% of people say that investing in the stock market is scary or intimidating
This market research was followed by competitive analysis.
Insights: Finance and investment apps are similar and offer the same core functionalities. Robinhood's competitive advantage is its ease of use and user friendliness, as well as offering crypto, stocks, ETFs, and options.
- Making investing social / gamifying it can make it seem less intimidating to users
- Allowing users to see other people's returns can spark friendly competition
- Adding social features to a finance app will give Robinhood an edge over its competitors
I created a survey so I could better gauge how open people are about sharing their financial information and investments with others.
Demographics (54 Participants)
- 33% Robinhood users, 66% use other programs to invest
- 17% 18-24 years old, 68% 25-40 years old
- 58% female, 37% male
Insights
- 60% of participants said they would be comfortable sharing non-specific information about their investments
- 76% of participants said that they invest to get the highest returns possible
- only 24% of participants agreed that investing is only for people who know what they are doing
The next step was to conduct 1:1 empathy interviews to develop a deeper understanding of how the users actually think and feel when booking flights.
Participants
5 users ages 24-55 who use the app Robinhood
Summary of Interviews
Essentially, I learned that all of my participants used Robinhood as beginners, and as they are becoming more comfortable with investing they are moving away from Robinhood and into more advanced exchanges. Another important bit of information that came out of this research is that ALL of my participants look to youtube, reddit, discord, and public investing websites for information on what people are investing in and why it might be a good idea.
Insights
- 4 out of 5 participants were highly receptive to the idea of having a social media feature on Robinhood
- Robinhood is popular among beginner investors
- 5 out of 5 participants look to YouTube, Reddit, Discord, and other sources for information about what others are investing in
- Beginners and intermediate traders need guidance and direction.
I created provisional personas based on my empathy interviews to help myself visualize the audience better.
It was time to make sense of my research and try to identify the problems and goals of my target users.
I read through my interview transcripts and transcribed notable points from each interview onto sticky notes, which I then organized into an empathy map that would help me articulate what I knew about a particular type of user.
Insights
- Robinhood is popular among beginners
- people look to the internet to find information about where they should put their money
Knowing this information, I created a POV (or problem) statement to put the problem into perspective.
User: A relatively new investor
Need: To know that they are investing in the right things
Insight: The user often looks to outside sources such as YouTube channels, Discord Groups, and Reddit pages when deciding what to invest in, because they look for the guidance of those that are more experienced than them.
A relatively new investor needs reassurance that they are on the right path because they often look for the guidance of those that are more experienced than them via YouTube, Discord, Reddit, etc when deciding what they should invest in.
From there, I was able to create a persona that captured my target audience in an individual personality that would help me throughout the timeline of my design.
The next step in the design thinking process was to brainstorm how I could actually solve some of the user’s problems.
Using the Persona and POV statements I had previously generated, I wrote out some How Might We? Statements to help me brainstorm potential solutions.
How might we help beginners feel more confident in their investments?
How might we create a sense of community for less experienced investors?
How might we motivate more experienced investors to invest more and reach for higher returns?
How might we encourage others to feel confident in their decisions to invest in a stock?
How might we make Robinhood more social, so that users feel engaged and driven to invest?
The Solution:
- Allow users to follow each other and see what others are investing in (without giving out specific information like portfolio value or how many shares each user owns)
- Add a leaderboard feature to motivate users to invest strategically and provide some level of guidance to those that are new to investing
- Allow users to set their profile to public (IF THEY WOULD LIKE)
With these new features in mind, I had to figure out how they would be incorporated into Robinhood’s current app layout. I made an app map to lay out my idea on the screen.
Then, considering the app map , I began exploring the tasks that the users would have to go through. I knew the main flows would be following other users using the search feature and checking the leaderboards to see who the top traders are and following those users as well.
With the structure of the website user flows in mind, I wrote out a UI Requirements document to have a reference point for which pages would be essential for me to design. This helped me make sure I was designing the correct pages for each of my flows.
I then began creating the first few sketches of my new app pages. I sketched out what each page would look like, keeping in mind the simplicity of Robinhood and how important that has been for the user experience thus far.
Because Robinhood already has established branding, I created a mini UI Kit to keep myself in check when designing the new features. I wanted to make sure that the new elements were true to the Robinhood style and fit seamlessly within the app.
Using my sketches and UI KIT, I developed the first iteration of Robinhood’s new social media features. Users would now be able to follow other people’s profiles, check the leaderboard, and search as well as quick add users from the app’s Browse page.
I tested my high-fidelity prototype on 8 users in remote moderated zoom calls. Of the 8 participants, 6 were male and 2 were female. 5 of the users had experience using Robinhood and 3 did not. I made sure to include the participants that were unfamiliar with the app to see how successful the UX would be.
Goals of research: to identify the flaws in the current design and to find opportunities for improved functionality (and design)
Task 1: Use the search feature to follow a user via “quick add”
Task 2: Make your profile public so that other users can follow you
Task 3: Check the leaderboard and follow the top monthly user
Summary
Users were able to complete the first task with a very minor issue. The Usability test was not created well, and I added an extra screen that really didn’t need to be there, so it tripped up quite a few of my participants. In the second task, it was VERY clear that the “public profile” feature needed to be moved to the hamburger menu. The third task was completed by all of the participants, however, some took longer than others. I wasn’t sure if it was because they didn’t read directions well and didn’t see that they had to filter the leaderboard by “monthly” or because the Period wasn’t labeled so they weren’t sure they could filter at all.
Quantitative Results
- 100% of participants completed Task 1
- 100% of participants tried to click the hamburger menu to find privacy settings during Task 2
- 50% of participants completed Task 3 without issue
- 50% of participants struggled with completing Task 3, but ended up completing it.
Qualitative Results
Based on the data gathered during user testing interviews, I transcribed important bits of information onto sticky notes and organized an affinity map in order to notice patterns in my data. Once I had my patterns determined I brainstormed a few ideas to address the patterns in my data. The ideas were then placed into a priority matrix which allowed me to better understand how to prioritize my changes.
Priority 1: Move public profile to the hamburger menu under
settings --> privacy --> public profile, set default period in the leaderboard
Priority 2: Move profile icon to the far right of bottom nav, incorporate a follow feature into the leaderboard
Priority 3: Add labels to icon designs
The most important change I made to the design was moving the location of the "public profile" setting into the hamburger menu, rather than having it under the "edit profile" icon (the pencil). Users expected to see it in the hamburger menu because that’s where Instagram keeps their privacy settings, and 100% of the participants in my usability tests clicked on the hamburger menu instinctively.
Another important change that needed to be made was labeling the "period" filter on the Leaderboard. Users had trouble understanding the direction to follow the top MONTHLY leader during usability testing. This may be attributed to users failing to take direction, but it happened during enough trials to warrant my decision to label it more clearly.
Other small adjustments were also made to the design, such as making the "follow" button larger on user's profiles to push it up further in the hierarchy of the page.
What went right? The feedback I got on my design was very positive. The UI fits extremely well into the current Robinhood design, and I believe the added features have a lot of potential in Robinhood’s future.
What went wrong? If I had more time, I would have done so much more research in every step of this process. This feature is risky, and I understand that it may or may not do well upon launch. A feature such as this requires much more than just a few empathy interviews, and I wish I had the time and resources to put as much effort into the UX as this project required.
What I learned. People are still very hot and cold when it comes to their finances. There are people that will eagerly share how much money they lost when GameStop almost broke the internet, and there are those who will smile and nod because finances are super personal to them. Also, there are definitely risks associated with adding a social media feature to a finance application, and the implication of allowing people to easily communicate and take inspiration from each other’s investments can potentially lead to more app-wide trading pauses. However, high risk = high reward, and this just might be a risk worth taking!
Next Steps. The features I added were part of Phase 1 of making Robinhood a social media app.
See the phases below:
Phase 1
- Leaderboard
- User profile
- Follow Users
- List of Followers / Following
Phase 2
- Create Groups
- Messaging / Group chats
Phase 3
- Feed / Homepage
