The Challenge: Design a digital tool to attract more people towards impact investing and hence create more customers for Trine
Team: Aishwarya, Hannes, Lisa, Eduardo, Irma
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Google Analytics, Hotjars
Role: User Researcher and Designer
Project Timeline: Five Months
Team: Aishwarya, Hannes, Lisa, Eduardo, Irma
Tools: Figma, Photoshop, Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Google Analytics, Hotjars
Role: User Researcher and Designer
Project Timeline: Five Months
Client: Trine
Client's Objective
Trine's primary objective was to find ways to attract investors to their investing platform and their long term vision was to become leaders for leaders investing and hence attract more competitors in the investing market.
About Trine
"We make it easy for people to invest in solar energy in growing markets. Our mission is to give people a triple return on investment - earn a profit while making social and environmental impact."
Trine's Hypothesis
"Will more extensive and clearer presentation of impact on sustainability increase investments?”
Design Process
We spent the first month in understanding investors, Trine's Customers, secondary research, insight building and problem analysis. Our goal was to release a minimum viable product before 25th December 2019 and hence we decided to follow the Lean UX methodology of designing, developing and testing the product. Agile development methods were followed both by designers and the developers to create the MVP.
SECONDARY RESEARCH
Initial Research
The first research step involved reading research papers, blogs, and creating an overall understanding of investing scenario over the web. The following were key insights:
1. Current impact investing landscape is fragmented
2. SDG/Impact/Green Washing
3. Gap between interest in sustainability and actual behavior change
4. No official certification/labeling framework for impact investing
Competitor Analysis
This analysis provides both an offensive and defensive strategic context to identify opportunities and threats.
PRIMARY RESEARCH
User Research- Non Trine Users
1. Profit before purpose
2. Lack of knowledge/awareness about investing
3. Sustainability just seen as an add-on
4. New investors copy portfolios & follow influencers
5. Distrust
6. Perceived as charity
User Research- Trine Users
1. Like the combination of both doing good for the planet while making profit for themselves
2. No open dialogue about investments
3. Widen the portfolio
4. Continuous monitoring each impact investment
PROBLEM ANALYSIS
After understanding investor behavior and analyzing the categories where the problems lie, we defined clear problem spaces that need focus and also prioritized them according the needs of the investors.
CUSTOMER SEGMENT
We defined the customer segment depending on the age, gender, interests and spending and investing habits.
DESIGN SPRINT 1
Sprint Question:
How can we make crowd funding impact investment options more accessible and attract more investors to their websites?
Sprint Result:
During the one week sprint, we developed an interactive ad experience which shows the contrast between your life and the life of people who do not have access to electricity. This is to direct users towards Trine and it's competitors.
The main idea was to immerse the audience in thinking about their privileged life compared to another life that is a complete contrast to their's. Different scenarios and personas helps the user navigate the way they want through the journey. We aimed to focus on feelings of guilt and comfort through this interactive movie.
Sprint Insights:
1. Why start the interactive movie?
2. A little confusing in general
3. Impact investment not so clear
4. Marketing
5. Should have done a budget analysis
6. The overall message was received
7. Fun with interactive elements
8. The contrast was effectual
DESIGN SPRINT 2
Sprint Question:
How can we build a platform that enhances impact investments in emerging markets?
Sprint Process:
Sprint 2 involved directly working on the earlier defined problem statement. This involved targeting impact and traditional investors both. We needed a platform that would cater to all types of investors and hence in turn increase the impact investments across the globe.
Sprint Result:
The desire to meld investments and social responsibility is growing at a fast pace. But with this growing demand, the impact investing scenario is still scattered and difficult to understand especially for new investors. We designed a platform that would bring together all options of crowd funding impact investments. It would also include a portfolio generator for users who are new to impact investment and cannot make the right choice.
Sprint Insights:
1. Very few options in the crowd funding impact investment market leads to the product not giving enough value for the individual user
2. There is no value for investors who are new to investing process. There should be a way to guide or motivate these new investors.
3. We can only direct users to the impact investment platform. There was no direct investment on Impactful.com. This forced users to login twice in most cases.
4. Photos of the solar customers led to users perceiving Impactful as charity platform. People that are used to invest in more traditional alternatives like stocks or funds for example, tend to be more sceptic towards such platforms. Change of visual-language was needed to increase the credibility of Impactful.
FINAL PRODUCT
For the final version of the website we chose to highlight the economical variables and benefits. The most obvious example of this is that we organize the investment alternatives in a way that many financial platforms use. By doing this we hope to attract a larger group of “traditional investors and to avoid being perceived as a philanthropy platform.
When we tested the different versions we could see that the main purpose with Impactful was clearer with the second version, and the overall layout got positive feedback. However, some people pointed out that the the solar customer, the social and environmental benefits was maybe too invisible in the later version.
When we tested the different versions we could see that the main purpose with Impactful was clearer with the second version, and the overall layout got positive feedback. However, some people pointed out that the the solar customer, the social and environmental benefits was maybe too invisible in the later version.
From our interviews with both traditional and impact investors we found that investing is perceived as a complex subject in general, especially if you add the word impact. As we mentioned earlier, many people look at impact investments as charity and do not really know that they can get returns on their investments. Words such as green, sustainable or ethical investments are also circulating and confuses people.
This made us aware of the fact that we need to educate our users as well and with that in mind we created the knowledge box because we believe that education and training in finance and business is necessary to increase awareness of impact investing.
In the knowledge box we explain the concept of impact investing in detail. We also gather and present the latest news and research about the topic so that our users can educate themselves and be up to speed. We also have a section where we write our own blogposts regarding impact investing.
This made us aware of the fact that we need to educate our users as well and with that in mind we created the knowledge box because we believe that education and training in finance and business is necessary to increase awareness of impact investing.
In the knowledge box we explain the concept of impact investing in detail. We also gather and present the latest news and research about the topic so that our users can educate themselves and be up to speed. We also have a section where we write our own blogposts regarding impact investing.
WHY IMPACTFUL?
Easy-to-use: convenient, fast processes, easy to understand, mobile version
Transparent: impact measurable, the “real impact“, avoid green washing
Safe: money is in safe hands, build trust around the product
Transparent: impact measurable, the “real impact“, avoid green washing
Safe: money is in safe hands, build trust around the product
Labeling: marketing effect for companies being on our platform
We aim to become the overarching voice of impact investing, the facilitator of change in investors’ behavior . Push the whole industry further
We aim to become the overarching voice of impact investing, the facilitator of change in investors’ behavior . Push the whole industry further
BUSINESS MODEL
€113.160.000.000
There are approximately 41 million households in Germany existing. Each household possess 27.600 Euros on their saving account. Assuming each household invests 10 percent of their savings into impact investing, 113 billion euros would contribute to a better future. We are just a few steps away from making impact investment the next big thing.
WHY NOW?
When talking about the success and failure of products or services people talk often about the right time. So why do we think its the right time for impactful? Low interest environment changed the perception of risk why alternative investments gain importance.
IMPACTFUL'S VISION
Establish a new normal in private investors' behavior, where making an impact along profit becomes the new standard.
LAUNCH RESULTS
450+ people visited Impactful and 26 created an account leading to a 5.2% conversion rate. Launching the MVP was the most challenging part of the project.
1. We started with setting up Impactful's social media presence across Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn; Published an article on Medium, designed a few ads and setup HotJars and Google Analytics to be able to analyze the user response. We launched two ads, one on 20th December and other on 9th January on Instagram.
2. We chose Instagram since we wanted to target millennials across Sweden.
3. Our main goal was to see if people even respond to the ad. If they do, then they clearly are interested in Impact Investment opportunities. But the more important question was "Will they sign up?". If they do sign up, this means they saw value in our product.
4. As you can see 450+ people visited our website but merely 26 created an account which is 5.2% conversion rate. A logical next step would be to invest in advertising more efficiently and get some more questions answered from the possible consumers.
FUTURE ROADMAP
That is where Impactful currently lies and obviously it has a long way to go. Every product is incomplete without knowing what are it's future possibilities. While doing our user researches and testing there were some things the users desired to have and some things they wished we did better. Our primary goal is to keep on strengthening the identity of Impact Investing.
1. Step one will be to develop a proof of concept for the MVP. This would include investing more on adverting and knowing the customer reviews on the idea.
2. After evaluating the current scenario, there is no standardized impact measurement system for impact investments. This leads to impact washing, green washing or SDG washing. We need to avoid this so users can start trusting impact investing more. And hence Impactful aims to install a standardized framework to measure impact of each type of investment option we offer on our platform.
3. Currently Impactful shows investments in the of off-grid solar crowdfunding category. But to make the product suitable for a full spectrum of impact investors we need to expand the investment options. We wish to start be adding green funds, bonds and stocks. Hoping that they are really "green". This will help in translating higher number of impact investors.
4. Making the investing experience as easy as possible for impact investors involves letting them view all their investments at the same place. We wish to setup a portfolio display where users can connect to their different accounts and all their investments would reflect on Impactful. This will help them monitor all their investments at the same place.
5. While we do this, we wish to collaborate with some existing robo-advisors likes WealthSimple or Ellevest and help users make their desired investment. This is specially for users who do not have too much time to give for making the right investment choice.
6. Last but obviously not the least, Impactful would partner with various companies that offer impact investing options. This would help them add their new projects as and when they launch. Hopefully this would also lead to more competitors for Trine-like companies and hence expand the impact investing market.
