Creating a New User Interface for the Investment App

Every aspect of our life is moving online, trading apps are gaining more and more popularity. But why do apps like Robinhood or TD Ameritrade have a big and loyal audience while others remain relatively unknown? One of the reasons is superior user experience (UX).

UI/UX plays a big role: when users come across an intuitive interface design, they want to come back t. So by keeping your interface and user journey consistent, you will gain loyal fans. Basically, that’s why you need to keep in mind that the interface design might get outdated. 

We collected a comprehensive guide on this matter: how to redesign an app, why it matters, and how to choose the right team for this task.

Why should you consider redesigning a trading app?

Online trading is at its peak! COVID-19 pushed people to trade more and more all around the world. Here are recent statistics to prove the point:

• eToro states that there was a 420-percent raise of opened stock trades during the first part of 2020 in the UK;
• online trading in the US increased by 5.9% in 2021 alone; 
• many popular trading apps dominated Google Play and App Store in January 2021.

People started trading for different reasons: some reevaluated their personal financial status during the pandemics; the others, locked in their houses, had more time to research additional sources of income. 

But the major shift has to do with the age of the current traders. Traditionally, older people were interested in investing, but now many young adults entered this market and became the most active group to resort to online stock trading. 

Millennials and Gen Z are already used to such apps. Therefore, they are more demanding for excellent usability and aesthetics than their parents. So the question arises: is your trading application ready to match the expectations of a newer generation? 

If your app can’t provide a perfect user experience, it’s time to consider redesigning it, even if you’re sure, your app can handle the onslaught of millennials. Look at the trend: 72% of businesses said that redesign a finance app is their priority. Big trading market players don’t neglect to redesign as well: for example, Robinhood has recently introduced a new approach to app design with dynamic visual experience during client’s milestones. If your goal is to increase the number of users, you can’t let yourself neglect design. The competition is insanely high, and you need to be one step ahead. That’s why you always need to add something innovative and eye-catching. 

Benefits of UI/UX redesign for trading apps

So you made a decision to give a fresh look to your application. Besides a trendy appearance and new visual features, what else do you have to gain by the app redesign? The truth is that quality and thoughtful redesign gives a bunch of additional advantages for your investment application.

Advanced usability

Let’s keep in mind that UI/UX redesign is not only about changing colors, fonts, or styles. The most important thing is to analyze the current user journey and detect the bottlenecks: what brings difficulties to users? What do they complain about?  Addressing these weak points will improve the overall usability of your application and increase user retention.

Increased engagement

If you embrace a user-centric approach during the redesigning process, eventually, it will lead to higher engagement: users will stop avoiding features they don’t understand. And overall, they will become interested in exploring new opportunities of your platform (especially if you spend some time educating them).

Improved loyalty 

Great UX retains users, so your long-time clients become the loyal fans of your app. They enjoy your app, they trust you more, and thus they will be ready to invest more with your application. 

Better brand image

Redesign helps your brand in two ways: firstly, it indicates that you do care about the user experience and usability, and that gives you brownie points. Secondly, you can polish your identity and visual style and make it more innovative, consistent, and eye-catching.

Opportunity for promotion

Releasing a new redesign is a good occasion to reach out to your current users, as well as to those who abandoned your app: maybe the recent changes would persuade them to return.

Moreover, you can prepare a press release about your redesigned app and spread it across the media. It may attract a new audience, as well as raise awareness and prestige of your brand.

Stock investment app design in 2021

UI/UX principles are all about making your application user-friendly and simple, especially in the fintech field. For someone who has never dealt with exchanges and trading, a stock investment app may look incomprehensible. Well, at least due to a huge amount of complex data. That’s why the ultimate goal of fintech UI/UX design is to provide a clear visual ecosystem, which will help a user to dive into trading stock markets.

With that being said, we collected the current must-haves of a good UI/UX basis for investment applications. 

Simplicity

At first sight, you might think about minimalism when talking about simplicity. But it doesn’t mean that other styles can’t be used to contribute to creating a simple and clear interface.

Fidelity Android app interface, source: Fidelity website

The main rule here is to not overwhelm a user and find the balance between a basic visual design and a sophisticated one with lots of charts and data Visual hierarchy is the key: you need to range the visual elements according to their importance. The most important ones should attract more attention and vice versa. Also, there is no need to stuff all the info into one or two screens, it’s better to leave more white space (blank space that surrounds other elements) to give a feel of simplicity.

Functional animation

Animation is usually a good way to boost user experience and add some joy to something as serious as a stock market investment app. But there’s also a practical aspect to it. 

Robinhood app animation, source: Robinhood Instagram

Functional animation guides users through the app: it can highlight the buttons they need to interact with or visualize the transition between different screens. In any case, it pursues several goals: to help navigate the application and make it a smooth experience That can be hard to achieve with static visuals sometimes.

Micro-interactions

We may not even realize that there are dozens of micro-interactions in the applications we use in everyday life, but they definitely affect our experience. Micro-interactions are winning users because they provide feedback on their actions or requests. 

Questrade Global app interface, source: Questrade website

A good example of micro-interaction is a bar in a trading app that shows if the user’s password is strong enough or not. It can change color or fullness, showing whether the user needs to change something.

Gamification

Gamification makes your software an interesting application with a wow factor rather than just a functional trading app. Younger audiences love that and considering that Millenials and Gen Z begin to trade more and more, it will definitely be appreciated!  

Robinhood’s gamification in-app element, source: Fast Company

Gamification also helps to relax and distract yourself – stock trading can be stressful for sure! But if you add, for example, a rewarding system for achieving some milestones (obtaining first stock, first money withdrawal, etc.), it would relieve the tension. And for some users, it will even ignite excitement and a sense of competitiveness.

Our Experience in fintech UI/UX design

Altamira team has lots of fintech projects in the portfolio: for example, check our Ticker Tocker development case. The usual trading app looks pretty restrained, and that’s why it may be abandoned by users pretty quickly. We wanted to prevent this scenario and set our goal as a clear, but interesting user interface. For that, we chose a dark color scheme to keep things understandable and easily highlight the major elements.

Ticker Tocker isn’t the only trading platform we delivered. Over the years, we managed to form a hefty knowledge base and expertise when it comes to trading app redesign. We would love to share a few tips:

• When you create a stock trading app design, you need to follow three main principles: trust, transparency, and simplicity. Users appreciate both solutions to their problems and an intuitive, elegant interface. It’s essential in fintech due to the vast amount of data processed. The design should be simple and comprehensive and provide a user with just enough useful information. Thus, we suggest using more elements of data visualization (charts, graphs, etc.)
• Always create wireframes — they are like blueprints for redesigning your app. You need to map out the structure and navigation beforehand, even when you’re not designing an app from scratch. Without wireframing, there is a pretty big chance of going through additional rounds of revisions. This will affect both time and costs.
• Don’t overuse dark UX patterns. We believe that it often pushes the users to act in the way the company wants them, which won’t always satisfy the users. Make user interest your first priority, because a happy user is your biggest ally.
• According to our experience, the most important elements in the investment app UI kit are icons, illustrations, understandable charts, ‌and typography.

How much does UI/UX redesign cost? 

Redesigning is a process that demands the involvement of several specialists, including a UI/UX designer. 

It’s impossible to create a user-friendly design ecosystem without conducting research and analyzing user behavior. For a redesign, it’s especially relevant. In case you already have an active user base, it would help a lot. A business analyst would be the one on your team handling such tasks and be in charge of your app transformation.

You will also need the help of an Architect who will provide detailed specifications for your application features. Specifications are very important as they describe the main user requirements: which features they need and how they would use them. When a designer or a developer works according to specifications, they can more easily estimate the scope of work and the reasoning behind every specific feature. And let’s not forget about front-end and back-end developers, who will code and implement your new design.

As to how much time is needed for redesign, it depends on every project. Such factors come into play as the difficulty of redesign (how many screens your app has and whether it’s a complete redesign or partial), the tech stack your app is built with. 

We prepared an estimate for an average app redesign and revamping, which is based on our experience.

Why work with Altamira on your redesign?

If you’re looking for a seasoned team for your trading app redesign, Altamira will be happy to help! And here are some advantages we have to offer.

• Expertise. We have a lot of experience with application design and development in different industries: enterprise resource planning (ERP), fintech, gambling, dating, social media, etc.
• Inhouse team. Our team consists of specialists experienced with different technologies. That includes everyone required for a trading app development, from business analysts and scrum masters to UI/UX designers and developers.
• Communication. Efficient communication between a vendor and a client is the key to success, so we put effort into it. We provide regular calls, demos, and project updates, and our team always stays in touch. We also adjust our communication channels and time to fit your schedule.
• Approach. Our approach is based on the Agile methodology that allows for more flexibility during the development or redesign. Moreover, we are rooting for consistency, so we typically start with a discovery stage and then go for an MVP development.
• Innovation. Our specialists closely follow the latest design and development trends. We’re also constantly embracing cutting-edge technologies to provide you with a top-notch competitive solution.

Conclusion

Trading app redesign might be a new trend, considering their rapid growth and the influx of young audiences. It’s a good boost for your stock investment app, especially if you’ve been using the same design since the day it was made. With the redesign, you can make the app more user-friendly, improve user acquisition and attract new users. 

To get the most out of it, you need to keep your users’ needs in mind and understand their behavior. Thus a deep and thorough approach is a must. We suggest considering redesign as a practical investment to your application, and this mindset will bring you the best results!

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