Redesigning a Fintech Platform to Turn First-Time Visitors into First-Time Investors

The problem with crowdlending UIs

Investment platforms in this space have a consistent UX problem: they were built to display maximum information, not to support good decision-making. The result is pages that feel like financial dashboards — dense, technical, and overwhelming for anyone who isn’t already fluent in lending terminology.

For an experienced investor who knows exactly what they’re looking for, the information is there. For a new investor trying to make their first lending decision, the page makes the product feel harder than it needs to be. The business problem was real: new investors were the growth opportunity, but the UX was calibrated for users who already knew what to do.

What the research showed

I combined research the company already had with what I could find myself, and read all of it together:

• Sales team research. Existing interviews the sales team had run with prospective investors, plus follow-up conversations with the sales reps to understand the needs behind the notes.
• Stakeholders. CEO and leadership input on what customers were telling them, what customers said was missing, and where they saw the product falling short.
• Desk research. Published research on what new investors look for and struggle with, plus investing forums for unfiltered opinions.
• Top 10 investing platforms. I picked ten of the best-known personal investing apps (Interactive Brokers and Freedom24 among them), created an account on each, mapped the flows and looked for the patterns they shared.

The sources are qualitative. I didn’t run my own interviews on this project, so there are no sample sizes to report.

Key finding: users weren’t reading everything on the page. They were scanning for four signals that told them whether a listing was worth investigating further:

• Is this campaign still open?
• What’s the return rate?
• How long is the term?
• How far along is the funding?

If those four signals looked right, they’d go deeper. If the page didn’t communicate them clearly in the first few seconds, users made uninformed decisions or moved on.

The research also surfaced a structural layout problem: the grid display was inconsistent depending on how many active campaigns were live. At low inventory the page looked sparse. At high inventory it became hard to scan. The layout wasn’t designed for variable listing counts.

Two kinds of investor, one interface

The research kept pointing to two groups with very different levels of knowledge. Both had to be served by the same pages.

The first-time investor

• Situation: has spare cash and little knowledge of investing, and wants to invest locally, in their own country.
• Struggles: doesn’t know how to start or how to do it safely. Financial dashboards and lending terminology feel like a test they’ll fail.
• Needs: guidance and a simple path to a first investment, visible signals of trust, plain language and a clear hierarchy.

The experienced investor

• Situation: already invests in other projects and markets, and wants to switch or extend their portfolio.
• Struggles: lacks the filters to narrow listings by their own criteria, and has to leave the list to evaluate each project.
• Needs: full detail on demand (financials, risk rating, terms) and a fast way to compare several listings in one session.

These are archetypes drawn from the research, not individual people. The struggles for the experienced investor come from the redesign decisions the research led to (filters, side panel), not from separate interviews.

What we were solving for

Problem: new investors arrive with spare cash and no investing vocabulary. The pages show maximum information, so they leave or decide blind. Experienced investors still need all of it.

Goal: tailor the platform to beginner users by making it more modern, more trustworthy and simpler to use, without taking away depth from experienced investors.

That led to four design principles, which are my own summary of the decisions the research led to:

1. Four signals first. Open or closed, return, term, funding progress.
2. Depth on demand. Details live one click away, not on the card.
3. Guide, don’t dump. Helper text and plain language in place of jargon.
4. Invest in place. Evaluate and invest without leaving the list.

What was redesigned

Investment listing page

Redesigned to surface the four key decision signals first — status, return rate, term, and funding progress — without burying them in surrounding detail. Less important information is accessible on the detail view rather than competing for attention on the listing card. The grid layout was replaced with a structure that works consistently regardless of how many listings are active.

Filter system redesign

The existing filters didn’t match how investors actually wanted to narrow their options. The filters were redesigned around categories based on real decision criteria:

• Return rate range — filtering by minimum acceptable return
• Term length — for investors with specific investment horizon requirements
• Funding status — how close to fully funded
• Risk rating — campaigns categorised by assessed risk level
• Amount available — for investors with specific allocation sizes

Project detail view — invest without leaving the page

Previously, fully evaluating a campaign required navigating between multiple pages. The detail view was redesigned as a side panel opening within the listing page — users can read full campaign details, review the financials, check the company background, and invest without leaving the listing. This enabled a batch evaluation workflow: open three promising listings, evaluate, invest in the ones that meet criteria, all in a single session.

Visual design direction

The visual language was made deliberately lighter — more white space, less dense data presentation, a cleaner type hierarchy. The goal was to make the page feel less intimidating without sacrificing the depth that experienced investors needed.

Two routes through the same pages

Both investors start on the marketplace list. What differs is how quickly they ask for detail.

First-time investor

1. Marketplace: lands on the list.
2. Scan four signals: open? return? term? funded?
3. Looks right? If not, next listing.
4. Side panel: details, earnings simulator, risk rating.
5. First investment: invests without leaving the page.

Helper text explains terms at the moment the investor needs them.

Experienced investor

1. Marketplace: lands on the list.
2. Filter: return, term, funding, risk, amount.
3. Open several: three promising listings in the side panel.
4. Meets criteria? Compare financials and company.
5. Invest: in each match, in one session, going back to the list after each decision.

These are the redesigned journeys. The old flow required navigating between several pages to evaluate a single campaign.

For new and experienced investors

The redesign didn’t simplify the platform — it reorganised it. Experienced investors who knew what they were looking for could still access all the detail they needed; new investors now had a clear path from landing on the page to making a first investment without feeling like they were missing something.

Process and outcome

1. Research: sales data, stakeholders, forums, ten competitors.
2. Synthesis: two archetypes and a direction.
3. Design: listing, filters, side panel, project page.
4. Prototype: stakeholders showed it to prospective investors.
5. Adjust and hand off: changes after feedback, then designs to development.

Prospective investors who saw the prototype said the product was moving in the right direction. They found it easier to understand and to grasp the basic concepts, with a better hierarchy and information structure, and more trustworthy, simpler and more guided.

That feedback came from stakeholder-led prototype sessions with a few prospective investors. My engagement ran through to handoff to development.