Overview
My journey at FiinGroup began as an UI/UX Designer, then becoming a Senior and Leader. As a team of one, I owned the design of FiinTrade, a web application aimed at demystifying stock trading for beginners.
Problem Statement
The financial market is intimidating for many people, with its complexity and jargon, not to mention misleading information everywhere. Our goal was to simplify this experience, making wealth creation accessible, especially for novice investors.
Design Process
1. Discover
In this phase, the Business Analysts and I conducted user interviews to determine user needs and wants. Not knowing much about UX back then, I consulted the technical and financial BAs on how good UX should be.
We also met with advisors from QUICK Corp (Quick is responsible for calculating the well-known Nikkei 225 stock market index) to hear their expertise on the desirable experience for an entry-level investor.
2. Define
I collaborated with the Business Analyst to draft the information hierarchy and wireframe key screens using PowerPoint (Yes, we did!). FiinTrade app had a widget-based design, allowing users to drag and drop widgets from a central hub to create their preferred views. I chose vibrant colors and dark backgrounds for fast information scanning and a modern look and feel.
3. Design
I started this job feeling nervous about your lack of design experience. But, with the help of our Business Analyst, I quickly learned how to use the Sketch app and quickly fell in love with it.
I ended up creating 800+ screens in just 6 months to accommodate different user scenarios. Later, I discovered InVision and Craft for rapid prototyping, which allowed me to share my designs with the Product team and advisor board for feedback.
4. Deliver
We needed to ship fast, so we outsourced an external development team for implementation. After completing our internal testing, we test with our advisors and selected target users in our circle.
Testing and iterating became my new regular as I worked to improve the UX in a short time.
Between March and July 2019, I also had the opportunity to lead a team of 4 Design and Business Analyst interns. I helped them test and write documents for the end users, making FiinTrade more accessible and stable. This experience helped me understand myself and others - it was a true highlight of my time at FiinGroup.
Outcome
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Launch Success: Attracted 3,000+ beta users within the first week of launch, with consistently high daily active users.
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Design Leadership: Established a design process, hiring designers for later stages, setting the design team at FiinGroup for future app development.
Conclusion
FiinTrade was not just a project; to me it was a journey of growth and learning. It taught me the power of user-focused design in making complex systems understandable and engaging. Leading a team was also an invaluable experience in my early career.
"We were impressed with Thao's work. She exceeded our expectations and brought our desired look and feel to life."
Trang Truong — Sr. Managing Director, FiinGroup