In early 2018, smallcase was on the horizon to become the go-to investment destination for first-time investors. A new website was in the works but there was no mobile platform, apart from an extremely outdated and soon-to-be-obsolete Android app.
There were early signs of a boom for smallcase but there needed to be a robust mobile ecosystem built from ground up for this wave of the next million investors. Armed with smallcase, these new investors would now be able invest as easily as booking a cab.
The experience was to be familiar, consistent, and reliable — no matter what platform they were accessing it from. Additionally, there were many behavioural problems with the web platform of smallcase that needed to be identified and fixed in the mobile version, and subsequently, applied back.
In 3 months, with constant learnings and feedback from customer support, the engineering team, analytics, and regular testing, we had designs across Android, iOS and mobile web. We built each feature to be intentional and as refined for the time of release.
Over and above this, a bunch of features were reworked from scratch to ensure a seamless mobile experience.
Onboarding to introduce and help people get started with smallcases. From our research, we discovered that there was a significant drop-off after sign-up as people were feeling lost and overwhelmed.
From our research and conversations with users, we learnt that selecting a smallcase was the highest point of friction before making the final investment, because of the sheer abundance of choice and lack of clarity of numbers. So, we set out to redesign the Discover section such that the process of picking a smallcase would be easier and more transparent. Discover, now catered to everyone on the investing spectrum, from the new investor to a more seasoned one who knows exactly what they want.
Consistency and familiarity is at the forefront of a reliable and high-quality experience. With this intention, we redesigned and implemented a cohesive look and feel across all the mobile platforms. A by-product of this was a flexible and agile design system, which is still being used across smallcase today.
On their mobile, users wished to view their investments at a glance or on-the-go. Accordingly, we designed clean and simple views that surfaced important numbers and information right at the top. The Buy flow was also made more transparent with fewer steps.
We created a new set of illustrations to be used across all platforms to further strengthen our brand language and ensure consistency. Furthermore, we spruced up the overall language in collaboration with customer support to sound and feel more human.