Private Market Product Detail Page Improvement

A design research–led redesign of the Product (or STO, short for Securitised Token Offering) Detail Page to address usability issues and information gaps that were preventing investors from confidently proceeding to invest.

Objectives

Improve the design of the Product (or STO, short for Security Token Offering) Detail Page in order to address the pain points identified during the generative research phase for the Investor Activation project (more information can be found in the Investor Activation case study).

Solutions

Recommended a clearer information hierarchy and prioritising access to critical documents and performance information above the fold
Add information deem important by investors but currently lacking onto the STO page
Introduced transparency around fees and subscription flow (fee calculator)

Impact

Informed two iterations of a redesigned STO Detail Page
Secured buy-in from Front Office and client-facing teams
Created reusable research insights for future initiatives via the research repository

Timeframe

2 months

My Role

Design Researcher

Type of Research

Evaluative Research

Research Methods Used

Analytics, Competitive Analysis, Concept Testing, User Interviews, Usability Test (Qualitative)

Timeline

Design Decisions

Below are the details about the main challenges and design decisions I made for this project.

1

Challenge

How can we help investors to effectively pick out information they require to assess the suitability of an investment product when viewing its STO Detail page?

Research Findings

Usability test showed that users found that it required a lot of effort to extract information from the STO detail page they need for decision-making, especially for those who were unfamiliar with the type of product on offer. There was a lot of information on the page, but it was not organised in an optimal manner.

Both usability testing and heatmap data show that investors frequently access the Investor Presentation. However, the said document is usually placed halfway down the page which requires a lot of scrolling to reach.

Heat map of one of the old STO Detail Page. As shown, the most clicked component on the page was the Investor Presentation despite being located halfway down the page under the Resources section. This pattern is mirrored on the STO detail pages of several other products I checked.

During the usability test we I also asked users to rank the relative importance of the various product information for assessing the suitability of an investment product.

*Relative importance of various product information as ranked by participants*

Design Decisions

Together with the product designer on my team, we decided on the following design changes to improve the efficiency of information scanning:

maximise the space for information display above the fold
ensure the most important information are above or just below the fold

The biggest change is moving the hyperlink to the investor presentation to above the fold to avoid users having to scroll down the page.

*Design changes to improve information organisation on the STO Details page*

2

Challenge

How can we ensure investors have access to information necessary for assessing the suitability of an investment product?

Research Findings

During the interviews of the approved investors of the platform, I asked what information they felt was lacking in the existing STO Details page that made them hesitant to invest.

Two things stood out:

Whilst the old STO Details Page shows the target return of the product, investors want to know the actual return since inception to see if the product performance is on-track
Since investments in the private market are not as liquid as those in the public market, investors would like to know what is the minimum "lock-in" period before committing

Design Decisions

After feeding this information back to the Product Designer, together we decided on the best place on the STO page to include the missing information. The new design was also shared with the Product Specialist within the Front Office team to ensure their buy-in.

*Two important pieces of information added to Bird's Eye view of the STO Detail page*

3

Challenge

How can we make the subscription process more transparent to lend investors more confidence to invest?

Research Findings

A factor affecting investor activation as revealed from the Investor Interviews is the perceived lack of transparency of the subscription (investment) process. Before the investor can subscribe to their desired number of tokens, they first need to make sure there is sufficient funds in their wallet to cover the subscribed amount and the fees charged by the investment platform.

However, a number of investors were not aware of the fact that fees were chargeable in addition to the subscription amount. This had led to confusion and frustration over the need to make multiple fund transfers.

*Pain points around fees of old STO Detail page*

Design Decisions

To help avoid this confusion, the product designer and I had come up with the idea of a fee calculator. User enters the amount they wish to invest, and the calculator will work out the amount of fees and GST (sales tax) payable. It will also inform the investor of their wallet balance, and any shortfall in funds they will need to transfer.

We have also showed "Our Fees" clearly at the top of the STO Details page to emphasise the fact that platform fees are chargeable. Furthermore, tapping on the "Our Fees" link will bring the user to the Fees section further down the page, which provides more details on the fees and an illustration on how the fees are calculated to provide more transparency.

Before Vs After

Here you can see the Old STO Details page vs the Redesigned STO Details page.

Before

After