Investopia

Investopia is a mobile-first concept designed to help beginner investors explore their investment preferences before speaking with an advisor.

It’s a lightweight, interactive experience that makes abstract financial preferences feel tangible and personal without relying on terminologies or numbers.

Most investment tools are cold, technical, and designed for people who already know what they are doing. For beginners, the process is rather overwhelming. They often don’t know what to ask and how to begin. This project explores how to make that first step more intuitive and approachable.

Deliverables:

End-to-end visual and UI design
4 distinct creative directions exploring different concepts
Interactive prototypes for stakeholder presentations
Compact design system including style guide and reusable components

Roles:

Conducted competitive analysis and pain point research
Developed and refined multiple creative directions
Executed full visual and UI design
Created and maintained a compact design system

Traditional investing tools are built around numbers, forms, and technical terms. But for beginners, that creates friction and intimidation.

Investopia takes a different approach. It uses a game like interaction to help users explore preferences without pressure.

Instead of asking, “What’s your risk tolerance?”, it invites users to design a city. Each decision maps to a core part of their financial mindset: how much they know about investing, how long they plan to stay invested, how much risk they’re comfortable with, how strongly they care about sustainability, and how actively they want to be involved.

After five simple questions, users create a city that reflects how they approach money and are matched with a unique investor profile.

Investopia guides users through five simple choices, each one shaping a different aspect of their city and reflecting a core part of their financial personality.

The interface is horizontal: the evolving cityscape appears on the left, while the right side houses the interactive question. Each screen includes a clear prompt, a slider for input, and an optional explanation for users who want to understand the logic behind the metaphor.

As users adjust their answers, the city updates in real time, growing in density, height, architectural boldness, greenery, and lighting. This transition makes abstract preferences more perceivable.

Once all five choices are made, users receive a unique investor profile, along with a snapshot of their personalized city. This result is designed to be saved or shown to an advisor in the next step, making the conversation more focused and personal.

EMMA ZHOU