re-imagining the onboarding experience

What is Magnifi?

Magnifi is an investment platform that aimed to make personal investing assistance accessible to all users with the introduction of a Gen-AI Assistant; by understanding their financial goals and motivations.

What was the need to revamp the onboarding?

With the introduction of the AI Assistant feature, the business and product underwent a transformative shift from being solely an investment platform to becoming an intelligence platform. This evolution meant that the primary objective was no longer centered around encouraging users to create brokerage accounts, but rather to engage with and experience the AI Assistant as a gateway to intelligent investing.

Consequently, the focus shifted towards driving sign-ups and subscriptions to this innovative feature, linking their existing investing accounts & recognising Magnifi's potential to deliver significant value. This strategic redirection proved essential, especially considering the cumbersome process associated with creating a profile.

Business Goals

Current Challenges

Several factors were limiting Magnifi's ability to attract and retain users:

1. Cumbersome Onboarding: The 6-step signup process with a mandatory brokerage account creation likely discouraged potential users. A faster and more flexible signup option could be beneficial.

2. Slow Verification: A 2-day wait for profile verification could lead to user drop-off before they even experience the platform.

3. Undiscovered Value: The core benefits and features of the AI Assistant, especially how it helps users, were not effectively communicated.

4. Lack of Ongoing Support: New users were left without guidance after signing up, making it difficult to get the most out of the platform.

5. Limited Trust: Users were hesitant to share information about their existing investments outside of Magnifi's platform, hindering the AI's ability to provide comprehensive guidance.

A glimpse of the process a user needed to follow to onboard onto Magnifi

"How might we make it effortless for new users to link their existing brokerage accounts, while also providing a clear overview of our product's features and benefits?"

A phased approach to onboarding optimization

To achieve our ambitious goals, we strategically divided the onboarding process into three phases:

• Streamlining Account Creation: This phase focused on reducing friction and barriers to entry. By simplifying the account creation and setup process, we aimed to increase user acquisition and build a larger user base.

  
  

• Account Integrations: Given Magnifi's evolution into an intelligence platform, this phase addressed account integrations. Simplifying and streamlining this process was crucial to improve user experience and encourage account linking. This, in turn, would directly impact our Assets Under Management (AUM) and user retention rates.

  
  

• Cold Start: This phase targeted the "cold start" experience for users encountering the AI Assistant for the first time. Our goal was to make it less overwhelming and confusing. By providing clear value propositions, benefits, and investment opportunities tailored to each user, we aimed to enhance their initial experience and encourage them to embark on their investment journey with Magnifi.

  
  

Phase 1

Revamping the Sign-up Process

Before the revamp, the process of onboarding a user involved going through 5 tedious steps where they were required to provide their personal and financial information.

There were a few obstacles users' faced going through this flow -

1. 73% drop offs at Step 2

• Needed a lot of personal and financial information ready before filling out the fields.

• Users were overwhelmed by the number of fields that needed to be filled out.

• Users already had multiple brokerage accounts and were unwilling to open another.

2. 88% drop offs at Step 4

• Lack of clarity about the feature that they were paying for.

• Unsure of the benefit - looking for a free trial before committing.

• Did not feel safe leaving their credit card information.

Due to the lengthy process, there was little interaction with the step highlighting the new AI-Assistant product that was being showcased. The value was simply not shown up-front and enough reason for them to understand more.

"How might we surface the AI-Assistant upfront in the onboarding flow so as to make users aware of it?"

Design Direction

3 main areas which we had to address while optimizing for the new sign-up experience -

1. Clarity of information - Design a dedicated entry point to provide complete information about feature.

2. Reduce cognitive load - Reduce the number of steps to complete an action.

3. Modular flow - Break down complex workflows to make it more intricate and digestible.

We had iterated and tested on a few versions before landing on the final version -

The impact of this change -

Phase 2

Easy Account Integration

To elevate user engagement on Magnifi and unlock the full potential of the platform's AI capabilities, we introduced a feature allowing users to seamlessly link their existing brokerage accounts to Magnifi. This enables them to effortlessly view and analyze all their investments in one consolidated space, enabling more informed investment decisions.

Why was this a need?

Research and product feedback revealed that 92% of active users on the platform maintained at least two other brokerage accounts as their primary investment channels. Users faced significant friction in pursuing goals, extracting key portfolio insights, and accessing portfolio recommendations. This stemmed from the manual data updates required for current investments and the inconvenience of managing multiple open windows. This friction had a notable impact on engagement metrics, which stood at 43%, and hindered users from recognizing the full value proposition of the AI assistant.

This is what their process looked like before -

But with the ability to link their account, it essentially erases the need to move back and forth between multiple applications, and have their information available to them within Magnifi.

Design Direction

3 main areas which we had to address while introducing this feature-

1. Seamless linking process- Seamless, non-intrusive components enabling users to link accounts without disrupting workflow.

2. Clear status updates- Clear and concise UI to show the status of their linked accounts.

3. Consolidated view- To highlight crucial investment details without overwhelming with excessive data.

Builiding trust: The key to user confidence

A critical aspect of enabling users to link their existing investments was establishing trust in Magnifi. Users need to feel comfortable and secure sharing sensitive financial information. To address this, we prioritized three key user experience principles:

1. Ability in a product’s competence to get the job done.

2. Reliability in how consistently the product delivers on its abilities.

3. Benevolence in the belief that the product wants to do good for the user.

Taking these into consideration, this is what we had landed on -

1. Seamless Linking Process

We made linking users' existing investments a breeze! By strategically placed prompts across the platform on both web and mobile, focusing on frequently visited pages. These prompts were designed to be non-intrusive and seamlessly integrate with a user's workflow

2. Clear Status Updates

Once a user completes the linking, the platform shows them a quick confirmation of the account they chose to link along with a status update of process. If successful, a full list of their investments are propagated in a tabular format with prompts to gain more insights around the same.

3. Consolidated View

Once a user successfully links all their investments, they would be able to view all their investments all at once. The LLM is also trained to filter their investments based on the query input.

The impact of this change -

Phase 3

Cold Start

While we streamlined the initial onboarding process, launch data exposed a critical issue: low engagement with the AI assistant among new users. This directly translated to poor new user retention.

Remote testing and heatmap analysis revealed the culprit - a usability gap. Users became stuck after the first interaction, unsure how to explore the AI assistant's functionalities. The data painted a clear picture: 74% didn't even initiate a conversation.

To bridge this gap, we developed a new, user-friendly introduction flow. This interactive experience showcases the AI assistant's most popular features, providing users with a clear roadmap to explore its capabilities and confidently embark on their investment journey with Magnifi.

What we had initially

The initial user experience designed, had some flaws that contributed towards this experience -

1. User is directly dropped into the conversation flow without context of where to start

2. There were no prompts to help a user get started with a conversation

3. Lack of clarity of how the tabs on the top nav would be useful to the user

Design Direction

3 main areas which we had to consider while introducing this feature -

1. Enhancing the welcome experience: Design a dedicated entry point to provide complete information about feature.

2. Personalisation: Reduce the number of steps to complete an action.

3. Comprehensive guide: Break down complex workflows to make it more intricate and digestible.

The Updated Experience

1. Deeper Dive into AI Assistant Features: We're going beyond a basic introduction with the AI assistant. The new onboarding process will delve deeper into its functionalities, providing users with a comprehensive understanding of each feature and its purpose. This will equip them to utilize the AI assistant more effectively in managing their investments.

2. Seamless Transition to Investing: To bridge the gap between learning and doing, we're introducing a dedicated starting point for investing directly after the AI assistant walkthrough. This will leverage user insights and AI recommendations to create a personalized investment plan, allowing users to seamlessly transition from exploring features to putting their knowledge into action.

3. Empowering Early Investors with a Guided Cheat Sheet: We're committed to keeping users engaged and on track towards their investment goals. To address this, we introduced a new feature: a dedicated "cheat sheet" specifically designed for early investors. This cheat sheet is more than a simple list; it categorizes common questions by theme, providing users with a roadmap to explore the platform's functionalities and maximize their experience.

The impact of this change -

Overall Impact

Positive results and strategic expansion

The three-phase onboarding redesign and optimization yielded significant improvements, bringing us closer to achieving our initial goals. However, we identified an opportunity to further enhance new user acquisition. We believe this is primarily due to the need for more effective communication strategies within the upper part of the marketing funnel, reaching our target market more comprehensively.

Moving forward, we're committed to optimizing the Magnifi experience for a wider audience. The next phase will focus on integrating newsletter subscribers and community users seamlessly into the platform. This strategic expansion has the potential to significantly increase new user sign-ups and broaden Magnifi's reach.