Mint Investment
Mint Investment is a platform designed to provide financial services for Chinese college students in the US, aiming to help them invest with ease.
Duration
5 months
Role
UI/UX Designer
Associate Product Manager
Team
Product Manager
UI/UX Designer
Software Engineers
Skills
Prototyping, Semi-structured Interview, Competitive Analysis, Persona, Journey Map, Feature Prioritization
Context
Mint Finance, a subsidiary of EasyTransfer, is dedicated to expanding its range of financial services for international students. While EasyTransfer currently offers solutions that facilitate tuition payments without the need for local bank accounts or sufficient local currency, the company aims to further increase user engagement. To achieve this, Mint Finance is developing a new platform that provides investment opportunities tailored specifically for Chinese international students, leveraging their existing user base.
Project Goal
Impact
25%
Reduced the project timeline
Increased project productivity by reducing the project timeline by 20%, from the planned 10 months to 8 months.
10,000+
Active Users
Over 10,000 active users as of 2024.
90%
User satisfaction rate
Over 90% of user reviews in app stores are positive, with an average rating of 4.5 stars.
I. Discover
Research Question
What gaps exist in current investing platforms for international students in the USA?
Who are the target users?
What specific needs and preferences do international students have?
How do international students currently invest or grow their wealth in the USA?
What are the key pain points in the current user journey that prevent users from investing?
What do users expect and desire from an investing app?
Stakeholder
Stakeholder Interview
Before speaking with end users, I conducted a stakeholder interview with the product manager to gather valuable insights into the product strategy, existing user base, and marketing plan. This preliminary step helped me understand the context and align my approach with the business goals.
Key Findings
This product targets members of the ICSI (Ingress Chinese Student Investment) Club initially, with plans to expand to other international students who are interested in investment in the future.
This product aims to fill a unique niche in the market by offering an investment app specifically designed for non-native users who may encounter language barriers, knowledge gaps, or have special needs.
End-user
90% of students begin investing while studying abroad.
Key Findings
67% of students became interested in investing while studying abroad.
Survey(N=36)
We conducted the survey to primarily understand who our target users are and gain insights into their investing journey—including the process, tools, and experiences. By using a survey, we aimed to evaluate the current user experience and identify key pain points efficiently.
In-depth Interview(N=4)
We conducted in-depth interviews to gain a deeper understanding of our users' experiences, motivations, and challenges with current investment platforms. These interviews helped us identify specific pain points, preferences, and opportunities for designing a product that better meets the needs of our target users.
International students tend to learn investing via online resources, peers, and simulation tools.
Word Cloud
Most international college students are at a beginner or intermediate level in investing.
Market
Competitive Analysis
I conducted a competitive analysis on four frequently used platforms mentioned in user interviews. This analysis aimed to understand how these platforms meet user needs, uncover gaps that our new product can address, and identify opportunities for differentiation and innovation in our offering.
Key Findings
To master investing, users frequently switch between platforms to learn, practice risk-free, and gather the necessary information for informed decisions.
Most platforms focus on either market trading or investment learning.
II. Define
Persona
Target User
Chinese students who have limited knowledge and experience in investing in the US market
Persona 1: Beginner
Persona 2: beginner-intermediate
Journey Map
User Need
An easy-to-use all-in-one investment tool designed for non-native speakers to learn, practice, and master investing.
III. Develop
“How can we effectively support Chinese students on their journey from beginners to mastering investing?”
Design Objectives
Offer customized investment courses and resources tailored to different skill levels.
Provide a market simulation service for users to practice and enhance their skills in a risk-free environment.
Ensure a consistent design to facilitate a seamless transition from practice to real investing.
Create a beginner-friendly user experience for novice investors.
Offer an interactive and immersive journey to help users grow their investment skills.
Brainstorm & Prioritization
Based on our design objectives, we brainstormed the essential features for each stage of the user journey and prioritized them according to their importance and estimated effort.
For the MVP, we focused on the most crucial features needed for product usability, deprioritizing those that require extensive development or significant resource reallocation to ensure a quick delivery.
All features are grouped by different levels to facilitate the alignment of the information architecture.
IV. Deliver
Final Design
Learn
It categorizes courses into recommendation, beginner, intermediate, advanced, and paid courses to accommodate users’ needs and learning ability on different level.
Practice: Market Simulator
It inherits the Market Simulation Contest from ICSI, building a platform for users to practice and improve their skills with a risk-free experience.
By providing contest ranking and detailed information about each player’s investing performance(portfolio, orders, and ranking trend), it helps users to learn from other investors efficiently.
The user interface for demo trading is designed to be identical to the user interface for actual trading in order to familiarize the user with real market investments.
Invest
When users are ready to enter the real market for investing, Mint Investment provides opportunities to invest in various financial products such as stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and ETFs.
With a minimalist and efficient mindset, it provides essential information about trading, including stock market charts, key statistics, news, and company profiles. At the same time, the transaction UI is designed to reduce the cognitive load and make it easier for them to stay focused on their investments.
Launched Product
My design received stakeholder approval and was successfully launched in November of the same year. For more details, check the link here: Mint.
Screenshots
Feature one: Courses
View course
Feature two: Market simulation contest
View market simulation contest
Feature three: My investment
View my investment
V. Reflection
Stay Hungry
Taking on the challenge of designing a finance app, even though I was new to the field, highlighted the importance of always being ready to learn. This project showed me that diving into new areas can lead to great professional growth and success, proving that being unfamiliar with a subject shouldn't stop you from taking it on.
Balancing User Needs and Business Goals
I realized that good product design is about more than just meeting user needs; it also has to align with business goals. By understanding and incorporating these goals, we ensured the app not only served users well but also helped the company grow. Finding this balance is key to creating products that are both user-friendly and successful.