An Australian asset manager (which we will call Atlas for the purpose of this case study due to NDA's) came to me to rebrand and redesign their consumer facing product and brand with the goal of increasing their retail investor user base. The goal was to take their current basic consumer fund app and reinvent it as a standout product for the everyday Aussie with the intention to grow the product from just a managed fund and introduce a home savings fund, debit card, rewards program and share investing.
This page is dedicated to exploring the design process of Atlas, to view the product case study - You can view it here
The client asked me to not only redesign their current app but also think about how their retail brand/product could be rebranded to better relate to a wide range of Australians. This is where I drew on the natural landscapes of Australia designing the 'Sun System'. Using weather data the app will change its appearance based on the positioning of the sun and weather conditions.
Overlayed over the Sun System is the tile based design system. Drawn from the idea of a frosted glass window with the sunset behind. Over the design process I explored the process of a frosted interface like Apples new visionOS but settled on white tiles and sheets for the easiest use and accessibility after user testing. From this the UI was designed with three main UI components:
- Cards - interactive swipeable elements designed for the main content of the screen like home screen cards and transaction details
- Sheets - designed to display in-depth information to the user like transaction lists, stock information and portfolio performance.
- Tiles - designed as interactive buttons to perform actions for the user
The whole app was designed to be fluid creating seamless native experiences for the user. Utilising subtle animations and natural navigation methods. The app even used the phones gyroscope to bring in depth and positioning to the UI with some elements like the transaction card gently tilting when the phone is moved.
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When we set out to start this project we had three main products we were wanting to build:
- Fund - the current product being rebranded
- Card - a debit card with rewards that go into your fund
- Stocks - an easy way for anyone to get investing through stock bundles
But, from early days of user interviews, a big trend that came back from our target user demographic was the need for help in home buying journey. This encompassed understanding down payments, taxes and fees when purchasing a home, understanding how much they could actually afford and save regularly and then look for properties that fit their criteria. This birthed a new product within Atlas called the Future Home Fund a place to set aside cash for your home deposit, earn high yielding interest, save properties to a wishlist and learn about the home buying journey.
This product was designed to intelligently coach users towards home ownership by initially asking questions around home value and deposit amount then sets up a recurring deposit schedule to help build towards a goal date. To tackle the needs over education, over time Atlas will also surface educational material to help educate around the home ownership process. With then a plan to help connect users to partnered broker services to help start the home buying journey when they are nearing their goals.
Another big aspect of this app was the need for it to be a set and forget strategy we did not want another app that encouraged users to open multiple times a day. So I set out to design an app that could be setup and left alone. This ethos directly links into the type of investments Atlas offers with the Fund and Stock Bundles being assets to be held onto for years to decades. With this, users could simply setup a recurring investment into the Atlas Fund and recurring funding onto your Atlas Debit Card via PayTo or Direct Debit.
We also wanted to make sure users knew what was going on at all times, so the app was designed to intelligently generate reporting in different situations. When the user had left the app for longer than 3 days the lock screen of the app generates a welcome back screen highlighting key moments that have occurred in the users account such as, auto-deposits, rewards earned, stock growth, dividend payout, etc. At the end of each quarter, Atlas will generate a report highlighting key trends and metrics in the users investments.
Overall this project was a massive upgrade from the current product with the app moving from a poorly built web-port of their online app to a fully native app to both iOS and Android (sadly the current app can't be shown due to NDA's). The features worked on and added were solving pure user needs and complaints. Now this project is still a work in progress with the client and one day I hope it gets to see the light of day!