Nimbl: Combining broad investment opportunities with affordability

The name and design system of this client has been changed as the product has not yet launched.

Two minute rundown

If you're in a rush, I created this quick video summarising the whole design process I followed for the Nimbl project.

To dig a bit deeper, the full case study is available below.

Problem statement

Nimbl is a new financial services platform offering affordable investing and access to private markets, which aren’t normally available to everyday investors. They needed help designing their landing pages to explain their proposition to potential customers, and ultimately sign up members.

Nimbl was born out of a frustration with the high fees other investment platforms were charging. They also wanted to bring down the barrier to entry for private market investments and offer financial advice to their customers. My challenge was to present this complex offer in a way which made sense to users, no matter their financial background.

Users and audience

People frustrated by the high fees on their existing investment products.

Interested to learn more about how to increase their returns in other markets, but unsure how to do this.

Looking to move their pension to a new provider.

Roles and responsibilities

On this project, I worked alongside the Product Lead and undertook all UX and UI responsibilities including research, copywriting and design.

We ran weekly sprint cycles and collaborated closely with the client’s CPO, CEO and Lead Designer through weekly meetings, async updates and in person handovers.

Scope & Constraints

I joined this project after a lot of discovery work had already been completed, so I had to orient myself quickly on the work done so far. We also took on the project from another agency, so we had their previous work to consider as well. The Nimbl proposition was not set in stone either, and client meetings often changed the course of the project, including our target persona.

Design process

1. Research

I joined this project after research had already been carried out, so I had to learn about the project quickly and understand what had been discovered. I also needed to improve my knowledge of the industry, as it was my first time working on a fintech product.

Key learnings identified:

There was originally a 'free' offer on the site; but users really didn't trust that language.
Overall the financial terminology was too technical, with really low levels of comprehension across the site.
Lack of trust generally in the platform. People wanted more information before signing up.

3. Refining the design

I started on my version of the designs by sketching and wireframing new ideas for presenting the Nimble proposition. I then moved to high fidelity designing in Figma, making use of the client's existing design system to ensure the landing pages remained consistent with their app.

A Figma walkthrough

Main design improvements:

Nimbl principles summed up in 3 key points (low fees, tax efficiency and boosted returns) with consistent narrative throughout.
Founding member front and centre, with a reworked copy explaining how it works.
New individual pages for Fees, Funds and Returns information to avoid overwhelming the homepage.
Journey page to illustrate how easy the signup process is.

4. Responding to users

We carried out multiple rounds of user testing on the product after each round of design changes. For the final stages of validation we had implemented hundreds of pieces of user feedback, client comments and information from Nimbl's regulator to ensure it met FCA standards. I then put these designs through another round of testing to ensure it solved all the key problems users had before.

Nimbl prototype walkthrough

Successes from the final testing round:

All users wanted to sign up to the platform; even asking part way through tests if they could join the waitlist.
More CTAs throughout the site led to easy access to signup.
Moving comparison of Nimbl with other providers to the homepage really sold the benefits of the platform to users.
Trust has been built through a new About page and clear expression of the sign up journey.

2. Usability testing

After I had orientated myself into the project and the research so far, I begun to take on usability testing myself. The goal of this stage was to test the latest designs and see where the biggest areas of misunderstanding were.

Areas to improve after usability testing:

Clarifying of founding member offer, how long it lasts for and what the 'offer period' includes.
A number of features were marked as 'coming soon' which made Nimbl feel like it wasn't established.
Waitlist is a key sticking point; users don't know why they can't just sign up.
Comparison of fees is too hidden. Users love this feature, so it should be better highlighted.

Outcomes and lessons learnt

I delivered a full version of the website 2.0 for the client. After 6 rounds of interviews and hundreds of specific changes to the proposition, the website narrative, structure, infographics, and copywriting I successfully arrived at a version of the site that every user fully understood. By this point, every user asked to join the waitlist at the end of the interview and the content was extremely well understood.

Going forward, I’d like to take the project into further rounds of testing but this time focussed purely on testing the proposition rather than understanding. I would also plan to run A/B tests to try out different copy and features to see which drives the most sign ups.