DesigningforFinancialBehavior

–25%

One-fund concentration

Diversification up across 5 investment strategies

Impact

–25%

One-fund concentration

Diversification up across 5 investment strategies

Repositioned

Regulatory questionnaire

From compliance friction to allocation input

Behavior-led

Investment UX paths

3 flows redesigned (guided, non-guided, level-change)

Investment dashboard — before and after

Context

Company

DINN — Actinver's digital investment app for first-time investors in Mexico

Timeline

October – December 2024 — from first workshop to development handoff

My Role

The workshops I ran surfaced the real problem.

Led UX design across all flows, ran the user testing sessions, and owned the development handoff.

The Problem

Users weren't distributing their investments. They picked one option and stayed there.

Hypothesis: users default to the conservative option because the product gives them no other frame to work with.

Behavioral

No context to make real decisions

Users confused timeframes with mandatory lock-in periods

Short-term losses in intermediate funds triggered reversion to conservative

No structure to distribute — so they didn't

Progress

No milestones. No movement.

No progression system or sense of advancement

Complex financial decisions with zero interpretive support

Product asked users to decide — without giving them tools to decide with

Regulatory

Questionnaire felt like a detour

Mandatory risk tolerance questionnaire required by law

Positioned as a random legal interruption — disconnected from UX

Couldn't be removed or shortened — but where it lived could change

One interview quote was the whole insight: "I started with the conservative strategy because I didn't know how to diversify. If I'd known before, it would have been different."

The 3 Core Design Decisions

1. Start with the person, not the product. Instead of a list of funds, the experience opens with a few questions — what are you saving for, how much consistently, how do you feel about risk — then suggests, not defaults.

2. Guided autonomy, not forced restriction. Two paths: one with structure and progressive unlocking tied to real financial milestones, one with full immediate access. No paternalism.

3. Compliance as a trust signal. The risk questionnaire couldn't change — fixed by law. But where it lived could. Moved from random legal interruption to a meaningful step toward a personalized recommendation.

Path A — Guided (Asesorada)

Structure, education, and milestones tied to real financial readiness

Entry

AhorraDINN

Foundational savings fund — available on signup

$25K MXN

Intermediate unlock

~3 months minimum salary — behavioral milestone

3 months

Advanced unlock

≥80% emergency fund consistency — proof of commitment

Personalized

Portfolio recommendation

Based on goals, risk profile, and emergency fund status

Path B — Non-Guided (No Asesorada)

Autonomy for users who know what they want — immediate access with nudges

Complete regulatory questionnaire

Risk tolerance profile — required by law

Immediate full access

All strategy levels unlocked at once

Behavioral nudges

Suggestions to diversify — nothing blocked

✓

User in control

Data-driven guidance without paternalism

Process

Workshops

Sessions across Growth, Patrimonial Advisors, Asset Management, Tech, Data, and internal financial experts. The decision to build this came from here.

Expert validation

Worked with financial advisors to ensure language accuracy — investment terminology, regulatory framing, and fund categorization.

Business rules

With Product, Legal, and TI — translated design logic into technical rules: unlock triggers, emergency fund consistency measurement, questionnaire integration.

UX Design

Full dashboard redesign: strategy levels, unlock flows, emergency fund estimator, goal-based onboarding, milestone tracking system.

Testing — 15 sessions

Recorded sessions validating unlock logic, dual-path architecture, and questionnaire integration with real DINN clients. Pre-development.

Analytics plan

Full Firebase tracking: emergency fund completion, level progression, diversification rates, deposit frequency, and regulatory compliance gaps.

Key Deliverables

Goal-Based Onboarding

Entry flow — goals, capacity, risk

User context first, product list second.

Progressive Unlocking Path

$25K trigger · 3 months consistency

Milestone logic tied to real financial readiness.

Dual Investment Path Architecture

Guided · Non-guided

Autonomy, education, and compliance in balance.

Regulatory Risk Integration UX

Questionnaire → allocation logic

Compliance embedded as trust signal, not detour.

Emergency Fund Estimator

Personalized goal + minimum salary fallback

Savings target with fallback for low-income users.

Portfolio Recommendation Mapping

Profile → distribution suggestion

Clear connection between user and suggested strategy.

Dashboard IA Redesign

Levels · Reduced cognitive load

Categorized by level, simplified terminology.

Firebase Analytics Strategy

Progression · Drop-off · Diversification

Full tracking plan + dev handoff documentation.

Outcome

Post-launch, single-fund concentration dropped ~25% as users redistributed across 5 strategies.

Validated with 15 user sessions before any development started.

It shipped with dual-path architecture and full compliance — investment access tied to real milestones, and the risk questionnaire turned from a legal checkbox into a meaningful allocation step.

Reflection

People don't read disclaimers. They respond to structure, milestones, and a sense of moving forward. Users don't need to understand compound interest to feel confident — they need to feel the product understands their situation. That's a framing problem, not an information problem. And every decision touched Legal, Backend, Growth, and Data at once — that coordination was as much the work as the UX.