Context
Suppose you are the CIO of an investment company experiencing a surge in inquiries from investors who want their portfolios to reflect their personal ethics and social values. As this trend grows, your company’s current platform is struggling to keep up with the demand for a more personalised, flexible investment experience. Retail investors are now seeking alternatives that offer the tools and information they need to assess the ethical practices of potential investments and make informed decisions on who to include or exclude from their portfolios.
The challenge is particularly acute for retail investors who often lack the expertise or access to reliable resources to evaluate ethical investments. Many are sceptical of existing resources, such as ESG scores, which they view as easily manipulated by corporations, leading to further confusion and frustration.
Faced with these challenges, I, along with my team, set out to design a solution that would empower retail investors to align their portfolios with their values while ensuring the platform remained competitive. In the following case study, I will explain how we tackled these pain points, developed a flexible and user-friendly design, and ultimately delivered a proposal that not only enhances the investor experience but also adds business value.
This is a brief presentation of the case study and a complete version is available upon request.
Project Objectives
With this project, the objective was to make sure the current and future retail investors are able to customise their portfolios to align with their personal values. The following are the accomplishments intended for the user:
An intuitive system that would address their preferences.
Availability of reliable resources to make informed decisions on potential investments.
Access to diverse investment options.
Business Objectives
Despite focusing on the user/investor interests, business objectives had to be considered including performance metrics. The below are the business goals for this project and how KPIs would be measured.
Expand Market Share
Retain existing retail investors while attracting new ones who are interested in values-based investing.
KPIs
Increase the number of new accounts by 5% in the first 3 months after update launch.
Enhance Product Offering
Diversify investment options to include more ethical and values-based choices.
KPIs
Add at least five new ethical investment products to the platform within three months.
Improve User Satisfaction
Address retail investor preferences and pain points to increase overall user satisfaction
KPIs
Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 80% or higher in post-launch surveys.
Increase Engagement
Observe emerging technologies and offer features that resonate with retail investors to encourage frequently platform usage.
KPIs
Achieve a customer satisfaction score of 80% or higher in post-launch surveys.
Research Questions
Why did you choose to make your investment portfolio align with your values?
Goal: To understand if increased social awareness is a driving motivator for investors to align their portfolios with their values.
What pushed for this change?
Goal: To identify the specific triggers or influences (e.g., social movements, campaigns) that lead investors to shift towards ethical investing and explore their impact.
Are the reasons internal(personal) or external?
Goal: To investigate whether the shift towards ethical investing is driven by personal values or external influences (i.e: regulatory requirements, reporting standards, peer groups, etc.) and whether it is influencing investors’ decisions to adopt values-based investing, compared to personal convictions.
When it comes to investing based on values, does profit matter?
Goal: To assess the importance of financial performance for investors who prioritise ethical values. This question evaluates whether these investors are willing to sacrifice returns for values-based investments or if financial performance remains a critical consideration.
Research Methodology
Focus Groups
40+ screened participants. These were a diverse pool of individuals with different backgrounds and investments were brought in for this discussion.
Process
Virtual structured discussions
Virtual screen recording with desktop devices i.e. laptop.
Utilising online video conferencing tools such as Zoom.
A 30-minute session each day for 8 days, with 5 to 6 participants per session.
40+ participants
Sampled from investment forums and platforms.
Online recruitment via professional network.
Hybrid Coding
A mixed-methods approach, using both inductive and deductive coding on the gathered rich-data. The data was then organised and analysed using Dovetail.
Method
From the focus group transcripts, I conducted inductive coding for in-depth understanding by using the rich-data to make segments, categories, and generate relevant codes.
Next was deductive coding where I used the previously created codes to assign on quotes, comments and overall transcript of each focus group discussions. I then conducted a thematic analysis to identify, analyse, and report patterns within the qualitative data.
Affinity Mapping
After the coding part of the thematic analysis, next was grouping all findings into categories and use an affinity map to organise the data.
Process
Placed all the codes and phrases from the inductive/deductive coding on figjam and began looking for similarities. Codes and phrases that had similar patterns were grouped together and ranked what category had the most pattern occurrence. These were then classified as the emerging themes for the research.
The top three emerging themes for this problem were:
1. Skepticism of Existing “Ethical Systems”.
2. Sense of “being in control”.
3. Sociopolitical Reasons.
Fig 01
The original notes on comments made by participants in the interviews and focus groups.
Fig 02
Research notes and rich-data grouped into thematic categories with affinity mapping.
Key Research Findings
Findings are solutions that can be implemented immediately, without possible future impact. We discovered that while there is a growing interest in ethical investing, it is accompanied by significant skepticism and a demand for greater transparency. Investors are divided between prioritising financial returns or favouring ethical considerations. Many are seeking a balance between the two.
The pain points highlight the need for more reliable and authentic *ESG information, as well as a broader range of investment options that align with diverse ethical beliefs. The major key findings from this research are discussed below:
Skepticism Towards ESG
User Needs: Desire for ESG initiatives to be more than just a marketing tool. Investors want these initiatives to be genuinely impactful and not just a way for companies to polish their image.
Pain Points: It’s difficult to measure the real impact of ESG. Some investors view it as a way for companies to garner positive PR without substantive change.
Behaviours: This skepticism leads some investors to disregard ESG labels and instead focus on their research or traditional investment metrics.
Need for Transparency & Authenticity
User Needs: Transparency and authenticity in *ESG reporting. They want clear, reliable information about how companies perform on ethical metrics.
Pain Points: Widespread distrust in the authenticity of ESG ratings, with investors expressing concerns about companies potentially manipulating data to appear more ethical than they are.
Behaviours: Some investors are skeptical of ESG-labeled products and avoid them altogether, while others invest cautiously and seek additional information to verify a company's ethical practices.
Desire for Ethical Investing Options
User Needs: Readily available ethical investments. A segment of investors would prefer for these investment options to be easily identified to include in their portfolios.
Pain Points: The market lacks sufficient options for truly ethical investing, or that such options are not easily distinguishable from more conventional investments.
Behaviours: These investors are more selective and may use specific tools or resources (e.g., Fossil Free Funds) to screen their investments. They also emphasise the importance of individual choices in reflecting their values, even if these choices have limited impact on the larger market.
Persona + Scenario
To ensure the product aligns with user needs, I crafted user stories based on detailed personas. These personas were created using insights gathered from focus group discussions and interviews. This teaser will only present John as the primary persona and explore his user scenario.
John is an investor who has developed a keen interest in the healthcare sector right after his grandfather passed from a complicated heart condition.
From his experience in working with medical professionals to care for his late grandfather, he believes that the healthcare industry is a significant pillar of altruism in society. With this knowledge, he decides to customise his investment portfolio to reflect this new alignment.
John is particularly interested in companies that are at the forefront of medical innovation, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare services. He decides to utilise Morningstar’s investment platform to simply, but effectively tailor his portfolio towards ethical healthcare-related investments.
Motivation
His personal experience with his grandfather’s healthcare journey drives his focus on supporting medical innovation.
Make a positive impact through investments that contribute to advancements in healthcare.
Ensure his portfolio supports ethical companies that align with his principles.
Pain Points
Doesn’t have time to manually customise his portfolio to align with his values.
In search of a reliable tool that saves time and recommends ethical-driven investments.
There isn’t additional assurance that his investments genuinely reflect his values.
Let’s do this!
Umm...where do I even start??
Whew!...heheh. That’s more like it!
#focused
I love having few options to select from. Less overwhelming and concise!
From now on, my investments will all be ethical and in support of healthcare
Design Mood Board Keywords
Brand Colours
Tiled Layout
Minimal with Breathable Space
Intuitive
Ideation
Quick and loose sketches with pen on paper to get a rough idea on the overall layout of the platform. These rough interaction flows became the foundation for building the information architecture.
Information Architecture
Quick and loose sketches with pen on paper to get a rough idea on the overall layout of the platform. These rough interaction flows became the foundation for building the information architecture.
User Flow
Using the information architecture as a starting point, I developed a diagram showcasing different user paths. The diagram depicts how users could navigate the platform and complete their tasks, whether they chose to use AI or customise their experience manually.
Mid-Fi
Hi-Fi
Design Rationale
The design choices for this prototype prioritised user-friendly navigation, transparency, and personalisation. By organising complex investment information into intuitive categories and offering customisable portfolios, the design enables users to make informed decisions that align with their values.
The system supports both novice and experienced investors through guided tools, clear data presentation, and a scalable structure, ensuring the solution remains flexible as market demands evolve.
These decisions not only enhance the overall user experience, but also align with the Morningstar's goal of fostering ethical investment practices, accommodate individual preferences and improve investor retention.