Toshi - Hadass Sternberg

Toshi — 2022
Invest with every shopping

Toshi is a German based startup that helps users invest money for their retirement. With Toshi's app automation, for every cashless purchase the user makes, a certain precentage is invested in a long-term portfolio. 🏆 First place winner project in Ironhack Germany hackshow Dec 2022 (UX/UI category)

Our team helped Toshi improve their current app by uncovering the users' financial-related pain points, and redesigning the traditional investment portfolio for users who did not invest before.

My responsibilities: UX Research, UX Design, Prototyping, Design System, UI Design
Duration: 2 weeks
Team: 2 product designers
Credits: Ironhack Berlin, Toshi

The problem and target users

Toshi's founders shared that they are having trouble engaging users with the app. They reported users expressed a lack of trust in the app, but couldn't track back to the exact reason.

The Toshi team seeked a user experience improvment, and was open for a branding/interface redesign.

The product's target group is users aged 18-42 years old; who live in Germany; all genders. They prefer cashless payment and have no prior investment experience or knowledge.

Original app usability test findings

Explore users' behaviour and fears.

Conducting multiple usability tests on the original Toshi app helped us better understand the fraction points that caused users to abandon the app.
To discover users' needs and pain points related to finances and investing, we conducted qualitative research in the form of interviews with both potential users and SME in the financial field.

To focus our efforts, we defined our goal:
How can we redesign a portfolio overview which has all necessary information and is easy to understand for people who did not invest before?

User interviews KPIs

Financial pain points of non-investors

Research taught us that users who have no stock-market investment experience are very curious about investing money and understand the value. Yet, they are driven by fears of market instability, of not understnding financial terms, or of being cheated.

Simultaneously, the SME interview taught us the foundations for good investment behavior - creating a long-term investment strategy, staying calm and focusing on the end goal, and investing steadily but consistently. All points can be defined by knowing one's risk tolerance and financial knowledge.

Improving features

The Solution: Simplifying investment for beginners

The redesign solution focuses on providing a clear view of users' portfolio status and encouraging retirement savings through achievable investment goals.

The new app design breaks down complex financial information into easy-to-understand insights, helping users track their progress and make informed decisions. This approach empowers beginners to engage with their financial future confidently, making investment feel more accessible and manageable.

Toshi app redesign

Action driven home screen

The new home screen is designed to focus on users' portfolio status while motivating them towards their long-term investment goal - saving for retirment

By introducing tangible investment goals, the design helps users visualize their progress and feel more connected to their financial future. In addition, the home screen is featuring educational articles on finance and investment, enabling the users to improve in their investment decision-making and confidence.

Primary portfolio card

New home screen

Clear transaction overview

Usability tests revealed that users experienced significant frustration with the transaction view, particularly when they struggled to understand the distribution of transactions.

To address this, the new design organizes the transaction overview chronologically, providing users with a clear and coherent view of their investment history. This structured layout allows users to easily track their transactions over time, enhancing their understanding of investment patterns and improving overall usability.

New transactions screen

Transactions history section

Portfolio insights over data

Recognizing that many users lack the skills to interpret complex investment portfolio data, we focused on presenting simplified, data-driven insights.

The new design emphasizes key indicators and straightforward summaries that clearly communicate the status of their portfolio, empowering users to understand their investments without needing to be financial experts.

Monthly and long-term investment progress bars

New home screen

Live portflio is secondary

Building on the importance of accessibility and transparency in financial products, we ensured that all information is readily available to users

While users can access live portfolio activity, this feature is positioned as secondary in the site-map hierarchy. This strategic placement allows users to prioritize key insights and simplified data first, ensuring they have a clear understanding of their portfolio status without overwhelming them with real-time fluctuations.

Portfolio view and gains

Investment goals

Increase security

To address user concerns around fraud and the safety of personal bank information, we implemented stronger security measures at critical points of interaction within the app.

By securing vulnerable touchpoints, like when changing investment settings, we're able to offer users greater peace of mind and a safer experience, ensuring that their personal and financial information remains fully protected.

Guiding tooltips

Change investment settings with improved security

Rebrand look&feel to communicate reliability

Toshi's team requested an app redesign as a nice-to-have deliverable. Since users have expressed a lack of trust in the appearance of the app, I've used the opportunity to enhance trustworthiness with a look & feel revamp.

I redefined the app's brand identity to emphasize reliability, modernity, and a tech-forward appeal. Building on the core brand colors—purple and green—I developed a cohesive design system that follows Material Design 3 guidelines, ensuring consistency and a polished, intuitive interface.

toshi brand and design system redsign

The Outcome

Our user testing confirmed that the redesign achieved its goals, 4 out of 5 task success. Our improvements show that the navigation optimization and interface refreshment created a more intuitive and reliable experience, directly addressing user pain-points and enhancing satisfaction.

Toshi’s team integrated the following core insights from our research and new experience design features in their MVP launch:
Embedded the tangible goal visualizations, the objective info and expert advice banners, and more transparency about the portfolio breakdown.

Toshi display

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