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Redesign Challenge for KP Fellowship
Imparting the value of financial education among young teenagers to help them make informed decisions.
Contents
UX Research, User Experience Design, Interaction Design, User interface Design, Wire Framing, Prototyping
Design Tools
Figma , Illustrator, Photoshop, Principle
Duration
5 Days
Type of project
Individual Project
WHY ??
Personal Motivation
I am novice investor who recently joined RobinHood platform about a few months ago. I always wanted to learn and trade in stocks but didn't have any financial education and had trouble understanding financial terms. I always felt really anxious, overwhelming to try it by myself since I couldn't figure out which stocks to invest in to start with and how I generate any returns, it felt like I was gambling with money and didn't fully understand its implications and taxations. None of my family members or myself have any knowledge of trading, plus I have dyscalculia so I have always had trouble dealing with numbers and graphs. After personally going through it and talking with my friends, I realized it was not only me but my friends who were just starting to get into trading faced similar concerns and initially took advice by hiring a financial advisor.
So I started wondering how could novice users like us make informed decisions without investing large sum of time and money to learn.
How can RobinHood impart financial education to its novice users so that they make informed decisions regarding trading in a seamless, cost efficient, fast and fun engaging way.
Understanding the Problem!!
Robinhood has democratized investing, by making it affordable for people of any age and income. It offers commission-free trading and has pushed many discount brokers to offer free trading.
Robinhood is extremely easy to use. So easy, in fact, some have argued that it’s made complex trading strategies, such as options trading, too accessible to inexperienced users. It has contributed to a culture that has “gamified” securities trading into something similar to a casino. Robinhood makes investing so frictionless and accessible that some people end up trading beyond their knowledge and financial means and it offers limited customer support.
Novice users who have trouble understanding graphs and financial terms often feel confused as to how the information is displayed on the app and have trouble making decisions regarding purchasing and selling.
Trend Analysis
Parents are using trading to teach their teenage children about the stock market and patience.
Parents plan to teach their children to be smart with his pocket money, through trading platforms and introducing their kids to markets by owning shares of the company's products they use daily and that they are interested in.
Some adults described feeling daunted by the topic when they were younger, and having made financial decisions they regret.So now they’re looking to help their children avoid the same mistakes by teaching them how to invest as little as $5 at a time—and by encouraging them to stick by their bets during wobbly times. They want to teach their kids, that “it’s not scary and intimidating.” Also that it's not only for rich and elite class.
Teenagers looking at stock market as a way to make quick money since early 2021
Social media became the fuel for one of the biggest revolutions in the way teenagers think about and interact with the stock market. Looking at the events on social media like Game Stops stock price sky rocketing and users earning a high return caused many young people to suddenly become aware of the possibilities present in the stock market. It also prompted more teens to turn to social media instead of just relying on mom and dad for financial advice. Also they have started looking at the stock market for a way to get rich quick without much financial knowledge
Market Research
Robinhood makes investing so frictionless and accessible that some people end up trading beyond their knowledge and financial means.
35%
of 18-to-34-year-olds turn to social media to research investment ideas.
of teens see the stock market as an opportunity to “make money quickly,”
39%
of teenagers ranging in age from 13 to 17 indicated that they view their own lack of knowledge regarding money matters as a “major” barrier to their future financial security
46%
of parents gave themselves a near-failing or failing grade in knowledge about investments.
32%
of girls showed interest in investing as compared to boys. All the more reason, experts say, to make sure that teen girls hear as much about the importance of financial knowledge and investing as boys do.
40%
of teens preferred to invest in the stock market as compared to opting for cryptocurrency and real estate.
43%
User Interviews
I did a casual interview with 8 people including teenagers who have just starting investing in stocks, Parents, Young adults between the age of 20 - 24 years and Financial experts to learn about their views and concerns regarding trading in stock market.
Financial Experts
"It's very subjective and personal to make decisions when it comes to investing in stocks and cryptocurrency. Young users should be exposed to financial education to help them understand the concept of how they should invest. They should target goals they like to achieve through the investment and that they should also consider investing for long term as short term gains are rare and have quite high tax implications. Having the right behavioral tools is really important before one starts to invest in, as it helps understand and take important decisions during market dips and not get panicked"
Teenagers
Jack Wilson
16 years old
High Risk Taker
Short Term Investor
" I started investing after my friends introduced me to it. I liked that we can now earn and double our pocket money in no time by just investing in stocks. I usually prefer to invest for short term as i don't have a lot of pocket money We usually have whats app groups where we discuss and chat about the stocks, mostly follow influencers on social media like youtube and I ask my parents before I make decision to invest and sell stocks.
I use RobinHood, I opened the account with my parents SSN and have been trading for past year"
Parents
Mason and Judy
Have 2 children, son 15 years old and daughter 17 years old
"We like the fact that our son is getting interested in trading but we as worried if our son is matured enough to trade own his own and inculcate bad investing habits. We feel the need to monitor his activity as we are often concerned if he is investing in the right stocks, entering the amount correctly, making informed decisions and not following social media blindly. We like our son to get financial education by a professional and help make informed decisions."
Young Adults
Anuja Shah
Safe Player
24 years old
Long Term Investor
"I was not exposed to any financial education by my parents or in high school. I wish I had got that education before so that I could have started investing way before. Initially I had trouble understanding what stocks to invest and when. So I hired a a financial advisor who taught me and help me get started. I would often ask him initially when I could invest and in which stocks which helped me learn to figure out how to make decisions, do research and helped with understanding financial terms and taxes if whenever I get stuck."
Key Insights
Parental Control - Parents preferred to have some amount of parental control and be involved when their teenage children made decisions regarding investing.
Guidance -Teenagers don't know how to make the right investment decisions and often depend on social media where information is sometimes misleading
Access to financial education -Parents preferred their child get financial education before they start trading to make rational and informed decisions.
Trusted opinions from their near and dear ones - Novice beginners and teenagers trusted opinions from their friends and family more and often used whats app groups to learn and discuss about stocks
Discrimination - Less financial education given to girls as compared to boys
Based on Research and User Interviews conducted, in order to inculcate good investing habits and get the needed financial education in young investors to help make informed decisions, Features should be developed to inculcate those habits among teenagers as that is the time around when they actually begin investing and trading.
Brainstorming
Based on the trend analysis, market research and user interviews conducted, I came across some pain points that could be addressed. I created a design criteria and ideated on different features of the system.
Feature Generation
Since Robinhood currently does not have any features to allow teenagers below 18 years to trade legally via the app and to prevent trading under their parent name, where parents find it hard to keep a track of their activities, I decided to focus on making two major changes for the redesign:
1. Parent Involvement
Allowing parents to be a part of and help guide their teenage children through the process of trading, financial education and keep a track of their activities.
2. Social Media
Through this feature teenagers can view suggestion and comments from their near and dear ones directly on the app regarding a particular stock. Robinhood can also keep a track of any misleading information and provide a reliable / professional source of channel through approved connection of influencers and friends.
Solution
1. Parental Controls:
Parents can easily view trading activities of their teen, can easily transfer the required specific amount for trading and track the progress for their child’s financial education.
2. Financial Education:
Parents can set restrictions that allow the teen to trade in high value stocks and crypto currency only after they have unlocked, acquired the basic financial knowledge and have cleared the courses and quizzes in the required levels.
3. Getting suggestions for trading from friends and family on the app
Through this feature, teens can easily communicate, suggest and add comments regarding certain stocks directly on the app and can view their friends activity as well to help make speculations accordingly as they value suggestions from their near and dear ones more.
4. Collaborating with Influencers
Robinhood can collaborate with influencers to share their content directly on the app so that they can monitor and make sure the information provided, discussions are trustworthy, professional and become a much reliable channel of information to prevent artificially boosting of prices and make it more transparent.
Moving Forward
I would really like to explore the feature and business model of having being able to connect with financial advisors over a subscription service where in a teenager and connect with them anytime, ask them questions in. case they are confused, regarding taxations, get their suggestions regarding stocks, better help understand the stock market and move forward, especially for those who don't have any of their near and dear ones trading in stocks. These financial advisors could do that as a part time job, like "Uber" of financial services. Moving forward i wish to talk to teenagers and financial advisors to ask them their opinion and their concerns regarding the concept.
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