Driving new user revenue through improved product discoverability on Smallcase
Made for
smallcase, an Indian fintech company with ~10 million users, providing baskets of stocks to reduce the barrier of entry into the stock market.
Made in
3 months
Responsibilities
User Research, UX Design, Competitive Analysis, Wireframing and Iterative Prototyping
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Problem
Users were not investing through the website as it did not provide relevant ways to discover the right products.
smallcase.com was built quickly to allow people to invest in the stock-baskets provided on the platform but the Dashboard didn’t really help users find the right investment for them. This resulted in users not relying on the website to make investments.
Original dashboard of smallcase.com
User and Business Goals
So, why redesign the Dashboard?
Users want to...
smallcase wants to...
Find their next (or first) big investment without spending time on research
Learn about investing and understand the stock market better
Explore new categories of investments that give higher returns
Understand their portfolio’s performance and the balance of their investments
User Research Insights
After conducting user interviews, I found users wanted better guidance that facilitated their investment journey.
Opportunities identified in user interviews
Help users find relevant portfolios to diversify investments.
Personalize content on the homepage according to the user’s profile.
Guide new users on the platform through relevant suggestions and education.
Improve discoverability of new features that may be helpful to existing investors.
Target Users
We found 3 types of users, based on their experience with the platform and investments.
Sam
New in the market
Young people beginning their investment journey
They require guidance in finding the right first investment and learning about the stock market
Most likely to start with free portfolios
Raj
Veteran investor new to the platform
Older, experienced investors who come to diversify their portfolio
They are attracted to specific themes that smallcases may be based on, like Defence or Sustainable Energy.
Most likely to pay for subscriptions
Kate
Experienced user of smallcase
Has made multiple investments on the platform
Wants better portfolio maintenance guidance, as well as to diversify into more types of investments.
Most likely to track their full portfolio
Final Solution
A personalized home page that shows the user the next best action they can take in their investment journey.
New user
Started investing
All-in
This is what a new user sees, the first time they log in.
Expected Impact
This overhaul aimed to drive more traffic through the website leading to...
20%
growth in new user investments on the website
25%
increase in tracking of external portfolios
15%
increase in subscriptions through this channel
Investment Overview
I upgraded the investment summary by including benefits of portfolio tracking to garner more engagement.
smallcase introduced portfolio tracking along with an Investment Score that rates the user’s investment behaviour. Think of it as an investments equivalent of credit score.
These new affordances came out as significant user goals during research, but users didn’t know about them, so improving discoverability was the aim with this section.
If they unlock their investment score, they will be able to see their investment score here too.
On logging in, users see a nudge to get their investment score to better understand their investments.
If they invest through smallcase, they can track their portfolio performance.
Finding relevant investments
To improve product discovery, we introduced 3 new lists.
Beginner-friendly Investments
As found in user research, new investors always trusted smallcase’s suggestions. To facilitate this we created a collection of beginner-friendly portfolios called ‘Ideal for Getting Started’.
Social proof added to highlight the popularity of these portfolios amongst new investors.
Primary action is an icon to watchlist this portfolio as it is a low-friction action to take.
Statistical Nudges
People wanted to know the most in-demand and top performing investments. This was introduced in an ‘Trending smallcases’ section.
Progressive disclosure used to spark interest in the list of trending smallcases.
Tabs to let users look at multiple relevant lists
Tabular layout allows easy comparison of returns
Returning users’ favorites
Users show interest in portfolios through viewing, tracking and subscribing. Using a ‘Based on your interests’ section, we bumped up the portfolios that a user showed interest in previously.
The portfolio’s growth since the last interaction highlights its recent performance for faster decision making.
Placed in first fold as these are the most relevant suggestions.
The CTAs are more concrete actions since the user has spent time viewing the growth of these products. These act as quick links.
Category-based Discovery
We made finding and comparing broader investment themes easier by revamping Collections
Stock market veterans came to the platform looking for specific investing themes or categories. This Collections section aids categorical discovery of investments.
Additional nudges that highlight the unique features of the portfolio pertaining to the category.
Tabs to allow quick navigation through all collections for easier comparison
All portfolios shown up front on the landing page instead of hiding them behind a touchpoint.
More tools on smallcase
A space to surface the platform’s various affordances that are relevant to a user’s state in the platform’s journey
The company wanted to cross-promote new services and tools to users on the website, for which we introduced a personalized section, that changes based on the user’s profile.
User new to the website
Loan offerings are prioritised from a business perspective.Tools to make first investment are shown.
Invests in portfolios and tracks external investments
Takes a loan from smallcase
Loan instalment coming up
Trending smallcases
Top performers
Most invested
Most watchlisted
smallcase Name
Grew by
CAGR
smallcase Name
XX%
XX.XX%
smallcase Name
XX%
XX.XX%
smallcase Name
XX%
XX.XX%
See all smallcases in this list
Low-volatility smallcases with minimum investment amount less than ₹1000
Med Volatility
Global Opportunities
India's most powerful companies in one portfolio...
3Y CAGR
19.25%
Min. Amount
₹ 1,650
Med Volatility
Global Opportunities
India's most powerful companies in one portfolio...
3Y CAGR
19.25%
Min. Amount
₹ 1,650
Med Volatility
Global Opportunities
India's most powerful companies in one portfolio...
3Y CAGR
19.25%
Min. Amount
₹ 1,650
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User Education
We included a step-by-step guide to acclimatise new users to the platform
New users wanted to know: “How to best use the platform to invest in the stock market?”
We created step by step progress bar in the upper folds that helps users understand the concept of portfolio-based investing with a video and lays out the steps they should take for a strong portfolio.
Manager-driven discovery
In the stock market, portfolio managers are celebrities. People come looking for their products.
Investment advisors in India often garner a big following on social media through their expertise. Search analysis and user interviews informed us that their followers follow them to the platform and look for their products.
Surfacing these star-managers makes their followers’ discovery journey much smoother. We did this by creating a section highlighting the top managers with a bit about their services.
Results and reflections
A phased rollout was planned for this redesign.
While this continued to be a prioritized project, I was not able to see through the execution of the whole redesign as I left the company to pursue my masters degree.
The project has been implemented partially and is being reassessed to include other investment products like Mutual Funds in the discovery process of the home page. I had worked on initial ideas for making this a multi-asset page which is still being continually scoped by the team.
If given the chance to redo this project, I would design it from a multi-asset perspective from the start to cut down delivery time of the final output.
The end
Let’s create together!
Arnav Sharma 2025
Last updated on March 2, 2025