Kuflink Platform App
The app was a complex design due to the business having several different products. The interface had to be user centric as users could potentially be investing thousands of pounds at anyone time. Any distraction or complication could deter them from their investment.
Project Outline
The Kuflink App project ran alongside the upgrading of a desktop accessible investment portal. It involved myself working alongside another designer, to develop the app design, whom left the project before it had reached its end and prior to the final UX flow being finalised. This left me to produce the final outcome in terms of UX flow and the end UI design following several stages of testing throughout the project, as well as any ongoing additions to the platform and app as it was updated over time.
Initial Steps
At the start of the project it was important to look at what we already had in terms of the online portal as this had been in place for a while already and users were already familiar with this in terms of overall user experience, though it was not without its faults. Both desktop and mobile outcomes had to be reflective of each other.
As mentioned before, avoiding distractions during the user journey was key as investors could potentially be investing large sums of money and would want to be reassured that both the app and the company was able to look after their money affectively.
Research
The research phase of this project started with reviewing the feedback we had already received from current users of the platform. This feedback was ascertained from review website, forums and telephone conversations with the Kuflink Investor Relations team.
Once this initial feedback was collated, we compared it to the product roadmap that the business had in place to see if any suggestions or issues correlated with any future plans that may have been already in place.
From this point I was able to move the project forward with a prioritised list of development that was needed.
This whole process was revisited a number of times especially with the desktop platform, as this was what the majority of the business’s demographic used to invest with the business. Each time new priorities and/or stoppers would arise and give myself and the developers new focus points to improve the product.
As we produced design solutions, we would enter beta testing with a pool of valued investors in order to gain their feedback on the development prior to releasing any such updates wider. This kind of feedback was key to the progression of both the desktop and mobile device products.
Some of the research would include bench marking the products of the business’s competitors and other platform style products. This research led to the design and implementation of things such as the ‘Refer a Friend’ system and an improve sign up process for the business.
Research was probably the biggest aspect of the whole development process for the investment portal and app of Kuflink as users could be investing thousands and thousands of pounds via it at any one time, so the product had to be as robust as possible. Working well and looking good went hand in hand for the platform in order to build trust in the products on offer.
Design Process
The design process for the project was a continuous loop running alongside the research phase of the project due to it being a live investment portal that we were upgrading and perfecting as a product for desktop and mobile use.
As with all my UX/UI projects all concepts and new additions to the product I would firstly map out by hand ‘offline’ in order to make sure they made sense and were practical to move forward with, without investing a huge amount of time into them.
Following this sketch phase, I would speak with both the stakeholders in the business and the developers to ensure that the line of thought I was proceeding down was what was wanted by the business and was also practical to implement from a developer’s point of view.
If for whatever reason my concepts did not fulfil either of these, I would take onboard the feedback and rework my sketches. This would be repeated until a suitable direction was found.
Next, with all elements I would move forward with creating mid to high fidelity mockups ready for basic user testing in house, these mockups would make use of the design library I had helped to develop as part of the brand of the company.
Once again, these mockups would be edited and retested based upon any feedback given before moving them into a full wireframing stage.
The final wireframing and handoff of each part of the ongoing develop of the products for Kuflink was always quite straight forward. This was due to the fact of the ongoing and open lines of communications between all relevant team members on the project, from myself to stakeholders to developers.
The process would still involve me annotating my high-fidelity mockups to ensure that it was clear as to what all aspects of the design were there for and would achieve in the overall outcome of the product.
Stoppers
Not a true stopper but certainly a bottle neck in the project was the number of new ideas constantly being developed by the team at Kuflink. Although the majority were great ideas we didn’t truly have the resources needed to implement them all as quickly as some of the stakeholders wished.
This was overcome, again by great communication in ‘stand up’ meetings and working in an agile way to get the best concepts turned into reality whilst not compromising the product overall.
Outcome
Overall, the ongoing nature and the open communication within the team always allowed for a smooth process from concept to implementation of any design.
The range of elements required for the overall product made for an interesting project as from day-to-day, week-to-week your focus could be changing from a dashboard screen, to a new product flow within the app or introducing a security feature to the product.
All outcomes fitted with the overall look and feel of the brand as well as ensured a comfortable user journey.
