Self-Directed Investment App

Skills: UX Research, UX/UI Design, Prototyping
Tools: Figma

The Company & The Challenge

IRA Financial is financial services company that offers self-directed retirement structures. They have a large digital presence and produce a wealth of content on social media. Their app allows clients to easily establish plans and keep up with the legal requirements of their accounts.

Up until this point, the company had been using third-party sofware to manage client accounts. Although it worked well enough, it had ease-of-use issues we couldn't resolve because we had no access; additionally, it was not the sleek tool the owner wanted associated with the company. As part of the rebranding and update effort, he wanted to move the company into the fintech arena and release a company app. The concept was simple--it was going to be a place branded by IRA Financial where clients could open their desired account, manage and submit all documents related to it, and check their balance. In later versions, we continued to add feautures and refine the design.

The Team & My Role

The team consisted of the owner and a lead specialist who both understood the business, tax law, and all the content that would be needed for the app, and a development team in India. The owner and specialist made rough user flows for both iterations; my role was to refine them and work with the team to translate them into the app, as well as design the UI and UX. I would also continue updating the app as we worked on new features. For the second iteration, a graphic designer joined us who would design illustrations and icons as needed.

First Iteration Design & Feedback

Working closely with the lead specialist, we developed user flows for the first interation of the app. This iteration was designed to tackle the main challenge of the project, giving clients a simple platform clearly branded by the company handling their account to see their balance and take any action needed related to maintaining their account. It was launched in 2019. Clients appreciated the new ease of use and having their accounts handled all in one platform, but reported dissatisfaction with the app's lack of notifications an interaction. This feedback was passed along to the developers to resolve.

One of the initial iterations of the IRA Financial app in 2019.

Second Iteration Design & COVID-19 Delay

The second interation had three goals: one, addressing a resurfacing challenge for the company, which was giving clients a simple way of knowing which account they need to establish; two, introducing the robo-investing feature, giving clients the option to invest in traditional assets in addition to alternative assets all from one platform; three, lining up with branding updates we had implmented on the site and company materials. Due to COVID-19's impact on India, this iteration's develpment was delayed as has not been launched as of January 2022. As a result, we have not been able to get feedback nor integrate further improvements.

User flows for the Account screen of the second iteration of the IRA Financial app.

Account screens for the second iteration of the IRA Financial app.

Introductory questionnaire screens, along with a suggested investment strategy, for the second iteration of the IRA Financial app.

Learnings

Due to the depth of my involvement with the company's websites, it was a challenge having my involvement limited to design for this project. Ordinarily, this would not have been a problem, but it was made difficult by communication roadblocks that, although I continuously tried to resolve and spoke to a higher-up about, were never improved. I asked to be more immediately involved in the contact with the development team and have access to their staging area so I could improve not only the look, but also the feel of the app. I would have been able to test the experience more, which would have allowed be to address client feedback more effectively. Although this was encouraged by the higher-up, there was very little in the way of project organization in place for it to come about in a meaningful way.

Nevertheless, the experience was incredibly formative. I was challenged to think for a different medium and plan for user flows in a way I hadn't before, having never designed for an app. Being the only designer and having no experience doing this kind of project without support from more experienced professionals was scary, but also awesome. I undoubtedly had to find design solutions to many problems that in a more robust design deparment I would have already had solutions to or more guidance to avoid. The experience opened up doors into app development I'm excited to walk though as I continue to grow in my career.