swell investing (visual Design)

Swell is a different kind of investment company, offering a transparent and delightful investing experience.

Swell Investing was an app that allowed customers to invest in the things that mattered to them. As Senior Visual Designer, and the first design hire at Swell, it was my responsibility to bring the brand, marketing, and digital products to life through visual design, user research, user testing, icon design, illustration, and motion design.

At Swell we started and ended with real customers by conducting qualitative research through interviews, prototype reviews, expert consultations, and surveys. Many face-to-face sessions, held via online video calls, facilitated natural conversations about users' occupations, interests, financial behaviors, goals, and investment familiarity.

Team meetings followed grouped interviews to synthesize notes, revealing common behaviors, user needs, barriers to entry, and persona types. Users expressed a desire for bank-level security, investment transparency, and low entry minimums. I used these insights to help shape our brand and make investing less daunting to our base.

I helped create a library using programs such as Sketch in for all visual elements, ensuring clean and consistent typography, color, illustration, and layout across devices. As the team grew we used Abstract to facilitate version control by allowing multiple designers to commit changes and merge branches into a single master file.

As we explored color, typography, and layout, we ensured usability for all users by complying with Apple's accessibility standards, including increased text contrast for color-blind users. We developed simple icons and playful illustrations at different fidelity levels to help users visualize complex themes.

One major challenge was crafting a sign-up flow that efficiently converted users into investors. The original web app was perceived as difficult and lengthy, lacking sufficient guidance on fund allocation. To improve, we integrated educational points and provided three balanced, pre-made investment mixes by Swell’s Impact team.

We introduced primer screens for simplified investment explanations and allowed users to explore portfolios, compare performance, and examine companies. A progress bar tracked sign-up progress. These changes facilitated selection of pre-determined mixes, accelerated sign-up, and were validated by 70% of beta testers choosing these mixes.

Since investing can be scary, we used character illustrations to humanize the concept of investing and represent a diverse range of people which were then animated to give them life. The visual design was tested in at varying fidelities: from simple sketches and wireframes initially, to more refined testing using InVision and Framer later on.

Research guided decisions. Iterative improvements based on user input required collaboration amongst product, visual, and user experience designers to create effective solutions. The design process prioritized functionality, balancing user needs with business objectives. Swell remained committed to enhancing the user experience to meet evolving customer needs until Swell eventually closed its doors for good in 2019.