The scope of my project was simply to create a networking app for investors. With the mainstream attention all avenues of investing have receicved in recent years, I saw this as both relevant and important. I saw InvestNet as an opportunity to create a user-friendly and accesssible experience that would target users who were uncomfortable or unfamiliar with personal finance.

From this, I posed the question, how might I enhance the interconnectivity of investors and foster financial educaiton in a one-stop site. Through the early phases of discovery, I uncovered compelling insights as to what my target users saw as roadblocks in investing discussion, education, and connection. My takewaways lead me to establish pillars of community, education, and commonality for my designs.

My user reserach consisted of 5 target user interviews (Gen Z and Millenial Individuals) seeking insights on their investment knowledge, interest in investment, experience in online networking, and their current stock brokerage. The interviews spanned from 20-30 minutes, 3 were done virtually, and 2 in person. Additonally, I sent out an online survey which received 16 responses. The survey sought information on potential users pain points in online investing interactions and investing in general. 

From my interviews and survey resposnes I was able to empathize with my users and create two user personas that were largely representative of the participants. My user personas were created to lead my design thinking process and allow me to visualize the user journey for real individuals. Maggie and Jude were essenti

For each of my personas, I created empathy maps making use of quotes from my survey and user interviews. This allowed me to further define who my personas were and what their underlying interests and fears were when investing and networking. 

To begin the early phases of my design process I created a hierarchial site map that allowed for me to plan out the InvestNet pages. With this to lead my early designs I was able to maintain structure and consistency in outlining my paper and digital wireframes and the prototypes which followed. 

With my site now mapped, I entered the first phase of my ideation process and drew out several versions of each fundamental screen. The paperwireframes allowed for me to research comeptitors and general web formats to quickly iterate and analyze which approach I found best for InvestNet. I entered each screen with a list of necessary features to be sure all formats captured the fundamentals and simply allowed myself to quickly expand on potential solutions.

With the key aspects of my designs solidified in my paper wireframes, I then moved into Adobe XD (a fresh experience from beginning my design journey on Figma) to create digital wireframes that served as a skeleton for what would become my high-fidelity product. My digital wireframes were pivotal as they allowed for a low-fidelity usability study to further enhance the flow, look, and features of my final design.

With my wireframes and a functional low-fidelity prototype, I went on to conduct a moderated usability study with 5 participants. I instructed the participants to complete tasks such as connect with an individual on your timeline and took note of their click patterns and points of confusion. I used open-ended questions to prompt further discussion and had them verbally narrate their process. Lastly, I had all participants respond to a system usability scale where they ranked various statements about their experience navigating the application from 1-5. 

Mockups and Hi-Fi Prototype ︎

My mockups follow the course of three main user flows, which are detailed below. The designs were intended to make use of round features, calm tones, and a minimal theme throughout. With this in mind, InvestNet and its general branding would indicate a sense of familiarity and kindness for new users to immediately become comfortable with.

Flow 1 - Connection Request - This flow follows a user:
(1) noting a mentor on their timeline with the use of the timeline tag,
(2) going on to find a point of commonality (a shared stock position) and
(3) reaching out to connect. 

Flow 2 -  Accessing a Group - This flow follows a user going through the process of filtering through what type of group experience they are seeking and promptly accessing a group that meets their criteria. The user than can reach out to connect with group administrators and view pinned group holdings on the group homepage.

Flow 3 - Enrolling in an InvestNet Course - This flow follows a user seeking more options trading knowledge. The user navigates within the option trading sub-group of the education page and makes use of the tagged search bar to find an appropriate course to enroll in. the users can access their badges from previous courses, explore a plethora of courses, research an individual course, and finally, enroll!

The final piece of my project was putting together my high-fiedlity prototype! With 31 interactive screens, my prototype allowed InvestNet to come to life and operate as a true web application! The prototype is linked below for any interested parties to enjoy navigating with the guidance of one of the 3 main user flows outlined above.

Prototype Link ︎︎︎ 

In practice I would like to see my design encourage more young individuals from historically marginalized backgrounds to claim and find stability in the markets. It is my personal goal to help guide humanity as a whole towards a more equitable future and for the time being, my small project, InvestNet, has major aspiraitons of helping start a small cascade in that direction.

This project showed me just how different designing for a web applicaiton is! Additionally, it taught me that as a designer, being able to adapt to various design tools (from Figma to Adobe XD in this case) is challenging but extremely rewarding. Lastly, I truly walk away from InvestNet with a newfound appreciation for user research. If not for various insightful comments and moments of struggle from my reserach participants, I would have missed out on endless opportunities for improvement.

For the future of InvestNet, I would ideally like to spend time developing the more analyitcs stock-based portion of the platform. When I conducted my competitive research, I saw just how threatening and daunting the data and graphs of stock analysis can become. However, I am confident it does not need to be that way. On top of further user testing, I would love to enhance the usability of stock reserach and trading to continue to create accessible financial markets. 

Lastly, thank you for your time in reading this case study and checking out my portfolio. Thank you to my reserach participants and design mentors for making this an enjoyable and vastly educational project. Next stop, Raza, an application to help first-generation students succeed.

- M :)