Building Confidence to Invest
Redesigned Ivy Invest’s onboarding to help new users move from sign up to investment exploration with more clarity, trust, and momentum.
Problem
Users signed up, but many dropped off before completing onboarding. Even those who reached invest options often left before finishing setup and never returned.
Business Goal
Increase the number of new users who complete onboarding and continue to investment exploration, turning first time users into retained users and supporting long term growth.
Due to NDA restrictions, parts of the final UI have been simplified. This case study focuses on the process, product thinking, and design decisions behind the redesign.
Role
Product Designer
Company
Ivy Invest
Industry
Fintech
Project Type
Onboarding Redesign
Year
Jan - March 2026
Understanding the Context
I did not conduct formal user research for this project. Instead, I worked with the PM to review existing user feedback, product context, and key drop off points in onboarding. This helped me understand where users were getting stuck and what they needed in order to move forward with more confidence.
Who this onboarding was for
Prospective U.S. investors interested in retirement and endowment-style investing, willing to invest at least $1,000 through Ivy Invest, and planning to hold for the long term.
Why Users Hesitated
The original onboarding flow focused on collecting information, but did little to help users understand what came next or feel confident moving forward.
In a financial product, asking users to make decisions without enough context can quickly lead to hesitation and drop off.
Competitive Review
I reviewed how similar financial products handled account setup, identity verification, and account selection.
This led to a key product question: should Ivy Invest ask for personal information early like many competitors, or wait until users had enough context and trust to move forward?
Product Framing
Instead of treating onboarding as a setup flow, I framed it as an activation challenge. The goal was not just to collect information, but to help users build enough trust and clarity to keep moving toward their first investment.
How This Shaped the Design
This framing shifted the focus of the experience. Instead of asking for information as early as possible, I designed the flow around what users needed to understand before they were ready to continue. That meant building trust earlier, guiding key decisions more clearly, and delaying sensitive requests until users had more confidence in the product.
User Journey Map
I mapped the journey around the questions users needed answered before they were willing to invest. This helped me identify three core moments in the flow: early skepticism, growing trust, and readiness to commit. The redesign used each step to support that progression from sign up to action.
Shape the Onboarding Flow
I redesigned the flow from sign up to account setup to make each step easier to understand, easier to complete, and more reassuring for first time investors. I used AI tools during exploration to move faster on early concepts, then refined the final direction through product thinking and iteration.
Made trust visible from the start
I introduced brand, portfolio, and progress cues early in the flow so users had more context before being asked to continue. This helped the experience feel more credible and less like a blank setup form.
Guided higher confidence decisions
I added support content at key moments, especially when users had to choose an account type or funding path. The goal was to reduce hesitation by making complex financial choices easier to compare and easier to act on.
Built trust before requesting sensitive information
I moved personal information collection to a later stage in the flow, after users had more context about Ivy Invest and had already chosen to continue. Compared with competitors that asked for this information much earlier, this approach felt more respectful and better aligned with user readiness.
Test and Iteration (validation?)
I conducted usability testing with 5 participants to evaluate whether the redesigned onboarding improved comprehension and willingness to continue. Although the guided flow helped users better understand Ivy Invest, some still hesitated when they reached the investment questions and were unsure which option to choose.
Added Help Me Choose
I added lightweight guidance to support users who were interested in moving forward but needed more help choosing where to begin. This reduced hesitation and created a clearer path from curiosity to action.
Data I Would Track After Launch
Because the onboarding experience has not officially launched yet, I would measure success through a set of activation metrics rather than a single number.
The main signal would be conversion from onboarding completion to first investment initiation, supported by drop off by step, engagement with decision support features, and time to first action. This would help the team understand both impact and next areas to improve.
What This Project Really Taught Me
Working with limited research inputs
This project pushed me to make design decisions with imperfect inputs. Rather than relying on a full research process, I used shared feedback from the PM and portfolio manager, user pain points, product context, competitive review, and testing signals to understand where users were hesitating, what they needed to move forward, and where the key product risks were.
Choosing the right product model
It reminded me that onboarding is not always just account setup. In this case, the bigger challenge was activation, helping users build enough trust and clarity to move from sign up to investment exploration.
Using AI to test ideas faster
I used AI tools during early exploration to quickly test directions and expand ideas. What mattered most was not the speed alone, but using that speed to compare approaches, sharpen the product thinking, and refine the final flow more efficiently.
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