Sprout

Sprout is a risk-free investment playground for first-time investors based on a design conceived at a UX Hackathon workshop

An all-in-one tool that allows users to grow their investment knowledge, gain valuable financial insights and by explore investment options before you ever step foot inside your bank, allowing users to gain the confidence to make the first step toward investing.

• Learn about how investing works and the benefits of being strategic with your money
• Explore growth projects and discover the ideal investment strategy for you
• Plan for your financial success with resources and expert advice



This project is based on a design from a UX Hack event on June 1, 2024 by my team of 4 junior designers. Following the workshop, I continued to develop the design on my own time (with the team’s permission!)

Young adults are inthusiastic about investing for their future but encounter significant barriers. They often lack the necessary financial knowledge to make informed investment decisions, which leads to uncertainty and hesitation. Additionally, many young adults have low trust in many online financial platforms, fearing hidden fees or unreliable services.

Sprout helps close the knowledge gap felt by many young adults by providing real-time financial information such as bank and stock market rates and allowing users to play around with different numbers within a mock investment environment. By gathering user info and matching with real-time market data, users can see various growth projections and learn just how far their contributions can go, empowering them to make the right first step for them toward reaching their long term financial goals.

This project was particularly interesting and insightful for me, partially because I was my own target audience due to my own lack of financial literacy.

Because of this, the first part to my Discovery process was ensuring that I understood the topic of investing, so that I could ask the right questions and conduct my research from a more informed position. In order to build my understanding of the topic, I did my own online research and spoke with individuals who had experience with investing.

From here I moved on to conducting a Competitive Analysis with investing apps Robinhood, Acorns, Wealthfront and Betterment to learn more about their services and how I would position Sprout as a competitor.

Along with utilizing the persona information that was given to UX Hack participants, I conducted my own quantitative research via a Google survey to help strengthen my understanding, which enabled me to build an Empathy Map for the target user.

Through my user research I was able to determine that a lack of financial knowledge and lack of funds were the two biggest road blocks for young adults who want to start investing for the first time. Additionally, I learned that these users are often times thrown a bunch of complex information about investing, which then causes more hesitation and mental distance from the topic.

In conclusion, I learned that I had to build an app that would educate, show the value of small contributions and to present information in a clear and concise way that doesn’t overwhelm the user.

I started the brainstorming process by creating a Mind Map to better understand and connect the user research and competitive analysis with my own design ideas. This allowed me to identify must have features, as well as how I would develop them.

For example, for Sprout’s Investment Calculator feature, I determined the need for goal discovery, data visualizations and a streamlined, simplified calculation process that users could learn from as they play around with various numbers. 

Next, I moved on to sorting through the various features and functions by creating an Affinity Map, which really helped me visualize the basic structure and user flow of the app. I was able to determine a 3-page menu structure for Learning, Exploring and Planning for a first-time investment toward a long term financial goal.

One of the biggest struggles that our UX Hack team faced in the original conception of this app was getting to the point of wireframing and prototyping, due to the fact that all 4 of us lacked investment knowledge. Because of this, getting started on the actual prototyping happened much later in the day than we anticipated leading to us rushing our design. 

When I took the project into my own hands to finish creating the design in my own style, I went back to redo the wireframes (following my own education in the field of finances and investing). 

During this second wireframing process I was able to create full and complete layouts for the 3-page navigation screens, the profile screen, topic walk-throughs, the investment calculator and the risk assessment tool.

Following wireframing I moved on to creating the visual design and components for the app. It was at this point that I began to also think about branding. 

As a UX/UI designer, I’m big on visual appeal and relevant imagery. When coming up with a branding concept I knew I wanted to incorporate the concept of “growth” in more ways than one. First I thought of the branding from an educational perspective, coming up with the name “Uvesti” (inspired by “University + Invest”). But when brainstorming from the perspective of user benefits and advantages I realized that the value of this app isn’t just in it’s educational factors, but in it’s results. User’s grow their knowledge, they grow their confidence, they grow their investment accounts.

Just like a baby plant sprout; starting out small and growing into a big and vibrant tree! 🌳