fintech
Designing the Goal-based Investment journey For Univest
Most investment apps overwhelm users before they commit. I redesigned Univest's GBI flow to lead with outcome clarity — surfacing feasibility first, friction never, and advisory exactly when it earns its place.
My role
Research · Product Thinking · Visual Design · Flow Definition
Timeline
3 Weeks — Kickoff to Handoff
1 member
1 junior designer (Me)
01 CONTENT
What is Univest, and why does this flow matter?
Univest is a mutual fund platform with one commercial priority: converting free users into Pro advisory subscribers. The Goal-Based Investment journey is how that happens.
The premise is simple — a user says "I want ₹1 Crore in 10 years," the app shows them it's achievable, and makes Advisory the obvious path to get there.
The catch? The initial PRD proposed separate flows for each goal type — retirement, education, home purchase. In theory, personalised. In practice, it was fragmenting the experience right before the most important pitch.
3
WEEKS
1
STAKEHOLDER SESSIONS
3
CORE SCREENS
PRODUCT TEAM - ALIGNMENT SESSION, WEEK 1
"We need users to actually buy the advisory — not just set up a goal and leave. Setup completion is what we track. Every screen we add is a screen where someone can drop."
This single constraint reframed the entire design direction. Fewer steps to the advisory pitch wasn't just a UX preference — it was the business requirement.
01 UNDERSTANDING THE PROBLEM
The original approach asked too much, too early.
The PRD's goal-specific architecture introduced compounding UX problems. Each goal type carried its own configuration logic, risk parameters, and screen branching — creating a setup experience so heavy that users dropped off before ever reaching the advisory pitch.
01
Cognitive Overload
Goal-specific logic forced users to make investment decisions before understanding what was achievable.
02
Fragmented Logic
Four goal types shared identical financial inputs but were designed as four separate experiences — duplicating effort and creating maintenance debt.
03
Premature Friction
Risk profiling and configuration screens appeared upfront, before users had any reason to care about optimisation.
04
Buried Advisory
By the time Pro Advisory appeared, users were fatigued — and the upsell landed without context or perceived value.
The core tension
Business wanted a stronger advisory upsell. UX needed less friction. These appeared to conflict — but the real opportunity was to make advisory feel like a natural outcome of a cleaner flow, not a hard sell at the end of a heavy one.
The Reframe
What if advisory didn't need to be sold at all? If the flow first shows whether a goal is achievable — then reveals how Pro Advisory closes the gap — the upsell becomes a logical answer to a question the user already has.
02 RESEARCH
One alignment session. Enough to change the direction.
With a three-week timeline, extensive user research wasn't feasible. I ran a focused stakeholder alignment session alongside competitive analysis of existing GBI flows. The combination surfaced one structural insight that reframed everything.
STAKEHOLDER INSIGHTS
Advisory is the core business driver — must be a natural outcome, not an optional add-on.
Setup completion was the primary tracked metric. Every extra screen was counted against conversion.
The experience needed to scale across goal types without increasing technical complexity or screen count.
Feasibility clarity ("Can I achieve this?") was more actionable than detailed investment configuration.
COMPETITOR PATTERNS
Early risk profiling and heavy configuration screens are primary drop-off triggers across competing GBI apps.
Goal-specific flows are often poorly structured — reducing trust and conversion effectiveness.
Goal-based framing improves SIP consistency — but only when users aren't forced to configure before seeing value.
Delaying outcome visibility directly conflicts with users' need to understand
KEY INSIGHT
Across all goal types — retirement, education, home purchase — the financial inputs were identical: income, SIP amount, time horizon, expected returns. The goal type only affected messaging. Four separate flows were solving one labelling problem with four times the engineering complexity.
03 DEFINE
The pivot: one flow to rule all goals.
Problem statement
How might I simplify the goal-based investment journey so users can quickly understand whether their goal is achievable — while clearly positioning Pro Mutual Fund Advisory as the most effective way to improve outcomes?
Hypothesis Statement
If we unify all goal types into a single, input-driven flow and surface feasibility before configuration, users will complete setup faster and encounter advisory as a logical next step — not an interruption.
5-Level Information Architecture
Each level builds on the last — narrowing from financial reality to a concrete advisory recommendation. Advisory only enters at Level 5, after the user has a concrete answer to their primary question. This transforms the pitch from an upsell into a solution.
LEVEL 1
Finanacial Reality
Income + Expenses → establishes baseline capacity
LEVEL 2
Investment Config
Time Horizon + SIP Amount + Expected Returns
LEVEL 3
Projected Outcome
Wealth projection with invested vs gains breakdown
LEVEL 4
Feasibility Signal
Achievable / Not Achievable — Am I on track?
LEVEL 5
Advisory Layer
Pro Advisory closes the gap — only after clarity
04 DESIGN
Initial wireframes.
Before moving to high fidelity, I built low-fidelity wireframes to establish data hierarchy and stress-test the 5-level architecture against the real screens it would produce. Three things became clear at this stage that shaped every subsequent decision.
01
Screen 2 had a layout problem
The projected outcome was sitting below the sliders — which meant users were adjusting inputs without knowing what they were adjusting toward. The wireframe made this immediately obvious in a way the IA diagram hadn't. Outcome moved to the top.
02
Screen 1 and Screen 2 were almost merging
At wireframe fidelity, the boundary between "what do you earn?" and "how much do you want to invest?" felt thin. Keeping them on separate screens looked like extra steps on paper — but seeing them side by side in low-fi confirmed the cognitive shift between the two modes was real and worth protecting.
03
Screen 3 needed a clear visual hierarchy
The wireframe had the feasibility verdict, the advisory comparison, and the CTA all competing for attention at the same visual weight. It was impossible to tell what the screen was actually for. This forced the decision to treat the feasibility verdict as the sole first-fold element — everything else scrolls below it.
These three structural corrections — outcome first, screens separated, feasibility isolated — were only visible at wireframe stage. Moving to high fidelity before resolving them would have embedded the problems into the final design.
05 DELIVERABLES
Three screens. Every decision justified.
The flow compresses what was originally a multi-branch, multi-screen setup into three focused screens — each with a single job.
SCREEN 01
Financial Baseline
"Tell us about your finances" — establish affordability before anything else.
SCREEN 02
Financial Baseline
Real-time outcome as users adjust time horizon, SIP, and expected returns.
SCREEN 03
Financial Baseline
"Tell us about your finances" — establish affordability before anything else.
06 ADVISORY PURCHASE & ACTIVATION
What happens when a user says yes to Pro.
Designing the GBI flow was only half the problem. Once a user decides to act on the advisory recommendation, they enter the MF Advisory purchase and activation experience — a journey that needed to feel like a continuation, not a context switch.
SCREEN 01
Financial Baseline
"Tell us about your finances" — establish affordability before anything else.
Financial Context Before Investment Config
The original PRD opened directly with SIP amount and time horizon. I pushed this screen earlier because projections anchored to arbitrary SIP numbers — disconnected from the user's actual income — felt meaningless and untrustworthy. Starting with income and expenses grounds every subsequent number in reality, not assumption.
Sliders Over Text Input Fields
Number input fields were tested in wireframes. The risk with text inputs in a goal-setting context is that they imply precision — an exact salary figure, an exact savings amount — which primes users to second-guess themselves before they've even started. Sliders shift the mode from "fill this in correctly" to "explore what feels right," which is exactly the mindset this flow needs to encourage. The interaction becomes exploratory, not administrative.
Kept Separate From Investment Config
There was a suggestion to combine financial baseline and investment config into one screen to reduce steps. I kept them separate because merging them forces users to context-switch between two very different cognitive modes: "what do I earn?" and "what should I invest?" The extra tap is worth the mental clarity.
SCREEN 02
Financial Baseline
"Tell us about your finances" — establish affordability before anything else.
Financial Context Before Investment Config
The original PRD opened directly with SIP amount and time horizon. I pushed this screen earlier because projections anchored to arbitrary SIP numbers — disconnected from the user's actual income — felt meaningless and untrustworthy. Starting with income and expenses grounds every subsequent number in reality, not assumption.
Sliders Over Text Input Fields
Number input fields were tested in wireframes. The risk with text inputs in a goal-setting context is that they imply precision — an exact salary figure, an exact savings amount — which primes users to second-guess themselves before they've even started. Sliders shift the mode from "fill this in correctly" to "explore what feels right," which is exactly the mindset this flow needs to encourage. The interaction becomes exploratory, not administrative.
Kept Separate From Investment Config
There was a suggestion to combine financial baseline and investment config into one screen to reduce steps. I kept them separate because merging them forces users to context-switch between two very different cognitive modes: "what do I earn?" and "what should I invest?" The extra tap is worth the mental clarity.
SCREEN 03
Financial Baseline
"Tell us about your finances" — establish affordability before anything else.
Financial Context Before Investment Config
The original PRD opened directly with SIP amount and time horizon. I pushed this screen earlier because projections anchored to arbitrary SIP numbers — disconnected from the user's actual income — felt meaningless and untrustworthy. Starting with income and expenses grounds every subsequent number in reality, not assumption.
Sliders Over Text Input Fields
Number input fields were tested in wireframes. The risk with text inputs in a goal-setting context is that they imply precision — an exact salary figure, an exact savings amount — which primes users to second-guess themselves before they've even started. Sliders shift the mode from "fill this in correctly" to "explore what feels right," which is exactly the mindset this flow needs to encourage. The interaction becomes exploratory, not administrative.
Kept Separate From Investment Config
There was a suggestion to combine financial baseline and investment config into one screen to reduce steps. I kept them separate because merging them forces users to context-switch between two very different cognitive modes: "what do I earn?" and "what should I invest?" The extra tap is worth the mental clarity.
07 KEY DESIGN DECISION
Unifying goals into a single flow.
Mid-project it became clear: retirement, education, and home purchase all needed the same four inputs. The only difference was the label. Separate flows were solving a copy problem with engineering complexity.
The realisation: Collapsing four flows into one wasn't a compromise — it was the correct architecture. And it resolved the business-UX tension: a shorter path to advisory is both better UX and stronger conversion.
✗ Before — Goal-Specific Architecture
4 separate goal flows with duplicated logic
Goal-specific risk profiling per flow
Repeated configuration decisions across goal types
Advisory introduced at different points per goal
High maintenance cost, inconsistent experience
✓ After — Unified Goal-Agnostic Flow
1 flow — same inputs, goal label only affects copy
Risk / configuration deferred to advisory layer
Zero repeated decision-making across goal types
Advisory always enters post-feasibility
New goal types need a copy change — no new screens
This also resolved the business-vs-UX tension: a shorter, cleaner setup flow increased the likelihood of users reaching the advisory screen — which was the business goal all along. Less friction didn't weaken the upsell. It made the upsell land at a better moment.
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