Acorns
Design Exercise
Time: January 2020
Scope: Visual Design
Role: Designer
Acorns is a micro-investing platform that helps people regularly save small sums of money.
Users can begin investing with as little as $5 and can automatically add contributions to their account by setting up recurring investments or by rounding up the dollar amounts of their purchases.
Potential
Acorns encourages its users to save by showing the projected value of their investments.
Exercise
For this exercise, I looked at Acorns’ current iOS app and selected 3 screens to reimagine, making only minimal changes to the user experience.
Scenario
Acorns is looking to improve their app’s visual design.
The current app looks too much like their competitors. They would like to elevate the styling, shed the stuffy banking / financial feel, and look more modern and more in-line with current visual design trends.
Features
I started by reviewing Acorns’ features to get a better understanding of the services it provides.
Acorns Invest
Acorns’ micro-investing account allows users to invest spare change or manually set recurring investments.
Acorns Later
Acorns recommends an IRA that's right for you and updates it regularly to match your goals.
Acorns Spend
A checking account plus debit card that saves, earns, and invests in your Acorns’ account.
Acorns Found Money
Acorns’ rewards program. Shop with Acorns Found Money partners, and they'll automatically invest in your Acorns Core account.
Acorns Grow
Learn how to get more from your money with easy-to-understand articles and videos from financial experts.
Research
With limited time, I read online reviews and market research to identify strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement.
Pros
User-friendly interface. Easy to understand terminology and helpful articles.
The low minimum balance ($5) is great for new investors to get started.
Fun and innovative options for funding your account such as rounding up change from purchases or receiving rewards by shopping with hundreds of participating retailers.
Multiple features in one app - the Acorns app offers users an investing platform, retirement account, checking account with debit card, rewards program, and knowledge center for financial education.
Free for college students.
Cons
Limited investment options may be too simple for experienced investors.
No individual stock trading. Instead, users choose from 5 pre-built portfolios based on financial risk.
The $1 per month flat fee is higher than some free competitors and is disproportionally high for accounts with lower balances.
The waived fees for college students is an interesting promotion that isn’t offered by Acorns’ major competitor, Stash. Searching for more information, I came across a Business Insider Report on the banking habits of Gen Z:
While two-thirds of Gen Zers have a bank account, many don't yet use debit cards, haven't aged into credit cards or loans, and aren't responsible for the bulk of their own spending. As they navigate life transitions, like going to college or getting a first job, there's ripe opportunity for providers to engage these customers.
The report also provides recommendations for financial services to attract and retain Gen Zers:
Authentic - Be honest about its mission and don’t pander to current trends
Engaging - Have clean & simple UX and grab users’ attention quickly.
Educational - Provide opportunities to teach financial skills and allow users to develop habits through its offerings.
Evolutionary - Brands itself coherently across the full product suite.
Offer Value - Give back to the customer through offerings and savings.
Acorns Screens
The current Acorns Spend, Grow, and Found Money screens.
Based on my research, I decided to focus on the following screens:
Acorns Spend
Cashback rewards can offer a powerful incentive for Gen Zers to open an Acorns checking account and begin using a debit card. In terms of design, the screen shares many components with Acorns’ “Invest” and “Later” screens and can serve as a foundation for building out those flows.
Acorns Grow
The Acorns app targets new investors, and the “Grow” knowledge center is a great opportunity for user education. Articles and media content also provide a vehicle for brand messaging. Acorns can use these resources to establish its visual identity and stand apart from the competition.
Acorns Found Money
The Found Money program is a unique feature to Acorns that can appeal to Gen Zers through savings on online purchases. The screen is also distinct from the previous two, and incorporates new UI elements to build out the visual language.
Option 1
Knowledgeable
Exploration
I explored three different visual styles and applied them to only the “Spend” and “Grow” screens to save time. Based on feedback I would decide which direction to move forward with.
The first option I explored was a visual design that would feel “knowledgeable.” I used softer, muted colors and simple geometric shapes* to draw focus to the type and words. I paired a rounded serif and a sans serif for balance and increased the heights of cards and components to improve readability.
Feedback for the rounded typeface was positive, but the design felt sterile and lacked energy.
* I didn’t create the illustrations and graphics in these screens, they’re placeholders for the purpose of this exercise.
Option 2
Bold
My next exploration used bold type and saturated colors for visual energy. I omitted the article description to make the headline more impactful.
Feedback for the “Grow” screen was positive. People liked the strong headline and were interested in learning more. The visual style was less successful on the “Spend” screen. The heavy type and colored background was difficult to read, and the type felt overwhelming. The buttons for “Transfer,” “Deposit,” “Send,” and “ATM” were also difficult to find among the text.
Option 3
Approachable
The final exploration aims to be approachable, and it uses larger type and ample whitespace for legibility while promoting moments of peace. Acorns offers long-term investment solutions that build on small, consistent actions, so I wanted the style to promote gentle reflection. Illustrations* convey motion and forward momentum. The warm tones of the human figures contrast the cool greens and blues and differentiate the color palette from competitors. I used softer shades of green for their calming effect while maintaining an association with growth and money. I brought back the circular buttons and icons from the Acorns app for more visibility.
This exploration had the most positive feedback. People liked the use of illustration and color. They felt that the app felt fun and honest.
* I didn’t create the illustrations and graphics in these screens, they’re placeholders for the purpose of this exercise.
I iterated on the final direction, expanding the color palette and adding the rounded serif typeface from Option 1 for more character. I restricted the use of green to highlight the most important items on the screen for increased readability, but it will need to be tested for accessibility on certain backgrounds. I added an underline to those instances, but I realize that it could confuse users who mistake the text for a link. Finally, I removed most of the small, descriptive copy to invite people to explore the app.
The illustrations play a big role in making the app feel cohesive. They will need to be created thoughtfully, but I think they are distinctive and can set Acorns apart from its competitors.
Style Guide
The type, color, and spacing styles used to create the screens for this exercise.
Components
The components used to create the screens in this exercise.
Final Thoughts
I really enjoyed working on this exercise. If I were to continue, my next steps would be to build out the remaining key screens “Invest,” “Later,” etc. and the corresponding flows. I kept the number of components used in these screens to a minimum and really tried to work with as few styles as necessary to create a clean, functional UI. Fleshing out the remaining flows and edge cases will require additional components to be added and existing screens to be adjusted. I left out some of the smallest type because I wanted to focus on making the most important copy larger and more inviting. Those items will need to be reincorporated as well, but for early stages of exploration I like to see how far I can push the design to generate ideas without too many restrictions.
Finally, one idea that came to me as I was working on this project was to experiment with changing the format of the articles in “Grow” to something similar to Instagram/Snapchat Stories - short, digestable pieces of content that are easy to beginning investors to follow and grasp. I think it could be a really fun way to breakdown complicated financial concepts.