InvestU Application
The Problem
Why aren't we giving young people the financial tools they need before they need them?
Teenagers in North America are entering adulthood with little to no financial literacy. Despite managing their own money earlier than ever — through part-time jobs, digital payments, and online banking — most have never been taught how to save, budget, or invest.
This isn't just an education gap. It's an emotional one.
Through early secondary research, I found that:
Financial anxiety among young people is rising
Most school curriculums don't include investing education
Existing apps either oversimplify or overwhelm young users
The core problem:
Teenagers want to learn about money, but existing tools make them feel stupid for not already knowing.
Solution
InvestU App, A research-led project exploring how to reduce financial anxiety and build investing confidence in teenagers, through user interviews, usability testing, and iterative design.
My Role
Lead UX Researcher (research design, participant recruitment, interviews, usability testing) + UX/UI Designer
Research Methods I Led
Survey design & analysis (22 participants)
Semi-structured user interviews (5 participants)
Competitor analysis (4 products)
Affinity diagram & thematic analysis
Usability testing (Lo-Fi & Hi-Fi)
A/B testing
Project Overview
Tools
Figma, Miro, Google suite, Slack, Zoom
Research Methods
Survey, 22 responses
I designed and distributed a survey to understand baseline financial literacy levels and learning preferences among teenagers and young adults. Key finding: 100% of participants felt they didn't learn enough about investing in school.
Semi-structured interviews, 5 participants
I recruited and led 5 in-depth interviews to go beyond surface-level answers and uncover the emotional experience of learning about money. I used open-ended questions to allow participants to guide the conversation naturally.
Notable quotes that shaped our direction:
Camilla:
“A lot of fear. I still don’t feel like I’m super knowledgeable”
Arian:
“I would still say I’m somewhat confused. I’m bamboozled between choosing where I would want to put my money”
Research
What I heard wasn't just confusion, it was shame and fear. That became a core design principle: the app had to feel safe and encouraging, not intimidating.
Affinity Diagram & Thematic Analysis
After interviews, I organized all insights into an affinity diagram to identify patterns. Three clear themes emerged:
Emotional barrier, fear and shame around not knowing
Information overload, too much, too fast, no clear starting point
Timing gap, the problem starts in high school but isn't addressed there
Research Goals
Before designing anything, I wanted to understand:
What do teenagers actually know about investing?
What emotions come up when they think about money?
Where does the anxiety come from?
Competitor Analysis
I analyzed 4 products, 2 direct competitors (InvestMate, Stock Market Simulator) and 2 indirect (Andrei Jikh on YouTube, CBC Street Cents on TikTok). Key gap identified: existing tools either oversimplify or overwhelm. None addressed the emotional barrier directly.
Key Insights
Insight
Fear & shame are the real barriers, not lack of information
100% felt undereducated in school
Over 70% learn best visually
Information overload causes paralysis
Design Implication
App must feel encouraging, never punishing
Position app as a safe "catch-up" space
Prioritize visual, game-based learning
Break content into small, digestible steps
Usability Testing: Lo-Fi & Hi-Fi
I conducted usability testing at two stages. Once with the lo-fi prototype and again with the hi-fi prototype, to validate design decisions with real users.
What users told us and what we changed:
Finding 1: Navigation confusion
Users struggled to return to the home screen during onboarding. We moved home screen access earlier in the flow.
Finding 2: Progress bar reset caused frustration
Users were confused when the progress bar reset between the learning and question phases. We unified the progress bar across the entire game flow.
Finding 3: Game mechanics weren't intuitive
Users didn't know what to do next. We added coaching pop-ups at key moments to guide users without overwhelming them.
Finding 4: Color affected perceived tone (A/B test)
An A/B test between orange and blue backgrounds showed users perceived the blue version as more trustworthy and calming, directly aligned with our goal of reducing financial anxiety.
Why this matters: Every change was driven by user behavior, not assumptions. This is the core of research-led design.
What I tested:
Can users navigate the onboarding flow without confusion?
Do users understand the game mechanics intuitively?
Does the progress tracking feel motivating?
Define
Who?
Teenagers and young adults
What?
The overwhelming amount of information is scary
When?
Often the problem begins during Highschool
Why?
Crucial in setting young people up for long term financial success
User Persona
Nick Thomson
Nick is a 17 year-old high school student who just started making his own money. He is the oldest of three kids and the first who wants to go to University but is scared about how much it'll cost. He feels that he hasn't learnt much about financial matters in school and is confused about managing his expenses. He doesn't know where to start.
Ideation
The problem statement was reached by analyzing all the information that had gathered so far:
How might we create an engaging and interactive app that empowers teenagers to confidently learn, invest, and build strong financial foundations?
High Impact, High Complexity:
Gamification
AI Chat Box
High Impact, Low Complexity:
Reward system for learning
Progress Tracker
Storyboard
From the problem statement we started brainstorming ideas and putting ideas in a Feature Prioritization Matrix and this is the conclusion:
From ideating, we decided to focus on these three core features, focusing on how we might teach investing to teenagers in a fun way.
Design
User Flows
Onboarding to Home Flow
Home to Game Flow
In the next step we imagined how the user would go through the application and created the user flows and iterated them. Here are the two most important user flows:
Sketches
In my initial sketches I explored how game would work and how information could be organized and displayed.
Wireframing
Low Fidelity Prototyping
Hi Fidelity Prototype
We then moved on to creating Hi Fidelity prototype and focused on two flows:
Game flow
Achievements and progress flow
Iterations after Usability Testing
As well as conducting usability testing with Lo-Fi prototype, we continued testing with Hi-Fi prototype and iterated the design based on the data gathered.
Based on testing we changed this to home screen for better navigation (it was in the onboarding before and user’s found it hard to get back to). We also changed the background color from orange to blue as a result of an A-B testing.
We adjusted the progress bar for the whole game as it used to be reset in the learning phase and question phase which confused users.
During testing users were confused about mechanics so we added Coaching Pop-ups.
Labelled bottom navigation and showed a clearer indication of when users were completed a level.
Link to Prototype
Next Steps
Conduct accessibility-focused usability testing with teenagers with diverse needs
Validate findings with a larger, more diverse participant pool
Partner with financial literacy experts to audit content accuracy
Longitudinal study: does the app actually improve financial confidence over time?
Takeaways
What this project taught me as a researcher:
Emotions are data. The most valuable insights came not from survey numbers, but from the fear in participants' voices. Qualitative research revealed what quantitative data couldn't.
Test early, test often. Our lo-fi usability testing saved significant design time by catching navigation issues before we invested in high-fidelity screens.
Research findings must drive decisions. Every design choice in this project can be traced back to a specific user insight. That's the standard I hold myself to.
Credits
Shout out to my teammates Rebecca, Daniel, and Neha. It was my pleasure to work with these fabulous people on this project. I enjoyed every minute and learnt a lot!
