Fidelity Redesign
Research
Problem
Solution
Design
Reflection

Fidelity Redesign

ROLE

User Experience Design,
User Interface Design

TIMELINE

June 2026 - July 2026

TOOLS

Figma, Figjam

ABOUT

This is a concept redesign, not a shipped product. What’s here is my design thinking on how I approached modernizing a genuinely outdated app and where I pulled the scope back once I understood what I could actually defend as a solo designer. This also isn't a full ground-up redesign of Fidelity's app. It's focused on the specific flow that came up in research.

1

1

RESEARCH

RESEARCH

2

2

PROBLEM

PROBLEM

3

3

SOLUTION

SOLUTION

4

4

DESIGN

DESIGN

5

5

REFLECTION

REFLECTION

RESEARCH - USER INTERVIEWS

I asked a few friends who invest, or who’d consider it, about their own experience with apps like this. Questions covered:

What’s the most annoying or confusing part of the investing app you currently use?

What’s the most annoying or confusing part of the investing app you currently use?

What investing or trading apps have you tried, and what made you switch or stick with one?

What investing or trading apps have you tried, and what made you switch or stick with one?

Why don’t you use Fidelity, or if you tried it, what made you go with something else?

Why don’t you use Fidelity, or if you tried it, what made you go with something else?

The answers: Fidelity feels outdated and intimidating next to newer competitors. Other apps lean on animation and feedback throughout the experience that makes investing feel more approachable.

RESEARCH - USER JOURNEY

Buying a stock takes 8 steps:

Login

→

Press Transact

→

Search

→

Pick stock

→

Hit buy

→

Enter amount

→

Preview

→

Confirm

Positions are no better. Tap a stock from your positions list and you only see what you own, shares, cost, gain/loss, not how the stock is actually doing. To check that, you have to back out and search for it separately.

Tap stock in positions

→

Shares, cost, gain/loss only

→

Back out

→

Search stock again

→

Finally see performance

Every account, Individual, Roth IRA, is just a number and a percent, no graph, no sense of how any single account is actually trending over time.

RESEARCH - COMPETITOR ANALYSIS

My focus is specifically on how approachable each platform feels to someone who’s nervous about investing, not a full feature-by-feature comparison. I’m comparing ease of use and first-impression friction across Robinhood, Cash App, SoFi, and Charles Schwab, since that’s the actual axis Fidelity is losing on.

Robinhood

Robinhood

Pros

  • Fastest, simplest onboarding of the five

  • Colorful, game-like interface lowers the intimidation barrier

  • Genuinely well-crafted UI/UX, one of the most polished interfaces in the category

Cons

  • Encourages impulsive, fast trading, the GameStop trading restrictions in 2021 drew real scrutiny for this

  • Limited account depth, no real retirement account options

  • Pushes Robinhood Gold, its paid subscription, aggressively throughout the app

Cash App

Cash App

Pros

  • Simplest onboarding of all five, most people already have the app

  • No account minimum

Cons

  • Barely a real investing platform, stocks, ETFs, and crypto only

  • No research tools, charts, or analyst ratings

Charles Schwab

Charles Schwab

Pros

  • Nearly as complete as Fidelity, with gentler onboarding

  • Strong free educational content for new investors

Cons

  • Still not simple, plenty of screens and terminology a first-timer won’t recognize

Sofi

Sofi

Pros

  • Beginner-friendly, all-in-one financial app feel

  • Free access to human financial planners, rare at this price point

Cons

  • Shallower research and analysis than Fidelity or Schwab

  • Smaller range of investment types than the larger brokerages

Fidelity offers the same things as its competitors, it's just not in the right order.

Fidelity offers the same things as its competitors, it's just not in the right order.

PROBLEM

New users find it intimidating and existing still deal with the same buried information and unnecessary steps. Checking your balance takes several taps buried behind menus instead of surfacing immediately. The whole experience reads as clinical and dense rather than approachable.

New users find it intimidating and existing, often older users who’ve used it for years still deal with the same buried information and unnecessary steps, they’re just used to working around it. Checking your balance takes several taps buried behind menus instead of surfacing immediately. The whole experience reads as clinical and dense rather than approachable.

How can I make Fidelity a more approachable experience for users?

How can I make Fidelity a more approachable experience for users?

SOLUTION

Every screen needs to answer four questions immediately: am I up or down, over what time period, is this normal, and what's the one thing I should pay attention to.

Every screen needs to answer four questions immediately: am I up or down, over what time period, is this normal, and what's the one thing I should pay attention to.

SOLUTION - GOALS

01

Surface balance and status immediately

02

Order information by urgency, 10-second answers up front, depth on tap

03

Bring in small feedback moments without tipping into gamified, impulsive territory

04

Reduce trade steps, without removing the moment a user confirms what they're doing

SOLUTION - USER FLOW

Using two ways, you can get to the same destination. Search, or browse an account you already hold, both end up at the same stock detail screen, then the same trade flow.

Using two ways, you can get to the same destination. Search, or browse an account you already hold, both end up at the same stock detail screen, then the same trade flow.

DESIGN - LOW FIDELITY

Wireframed first, before any visual design: loading, homepage, discover, accounts, stock detail, trade, confirm.

Wireframed first, before any visual design: loading, homepage, discover, accounts, stock detail, trade, confirm.

Hero

Hero

Login

Login

Homepage

Homepage

Accounts

Accounts

Stock

Stock

Trade Button Pressed

Trade Button Pressed

Trade

Trade

Confirm

Confirm

Success

Success

DESIGN - FINAL

Loading

Loading

Addressing the dated, clinical feel of Fidelity's real login screen, I tested three different visual directions before committing to one, each standing in for a different brand personality, serious, clean and friendly.

Homepage

Homepage

Addressing market noise outranking your balance, and account info that's just a bare number with no trend, I rebuilt the homepage to lead with what you actually opened the app to check.

Account cards use a "peek" pattern, a sliver of the next card showing at the edge, so swiping reads as an invitation instead of a hidden gesture behind pagination dots.

Smaller fixes: cut a redundant "All accounts" label, swapped a vague "Review options" CTA for a direct "Invest Cash →."

Addressing market noise outranking your balance, and account info that's just a bare number with no trend, I rebuilt the homepage to lead with what you actually opened the app to check.

Account cards use a "peek" pattern, a sliver of the next card showing at the edge, so swiping reads as an invitation instead of a hidden gesture behind pagination dots.

Smaller fixes: cut a redundant "All accounts" label, swapped a vague "Review options" CTA for a direct "Invest Cash >."

Addressing market noise outranking your balance, and account info that's just a bare number with no trend, I rebuilt the homepage to lead with what you actually opened the app to check.

Account cards use a "peek" pattern, a sliver of the next card showing at the edge, so swiping reads as an invitation instead of a hidden gesture behind pagination dots.

Smaller fixes: cut a redundant "All accounts" label, swapped a vague "Review options" CTA for a direct "Invest Cash →."

This allows users to:

  • See their balance and today's change the moment the app opens

  • Check how each individual account, not just the combined total, is actually trending, since every account now carries its own graph

  • Swipe between accounts naturally, without needing dots to explain that more content exists

Stocks

Stocks

Addressing the problem of Fidelity's positions tab showing only what you own, shares, cost, gain/loss, with no way to see how a stock is actually performing without backing out and searching for it separately, I combined ownership and performance into a single view.

This allows users to:

  • See the actual price chart, market value, total return, and analyst rating on the same screen as their shares owned

  • Skip leaving the page just to check whether a stock is up or down today

  • View key financials at a glance instead of hunting across four separate tabs, Overview, Research, Options, Positions

Trade Process

Trade Process

Addressing the 8-step buy flow in Fidelity's real app, including an unnecessary Transact detour and a Preview/Accept split into two separate screens, I collapsed the entire flow into 6 steps

This allows users to:

  • Enter an amount and see the full order summary, shares, total, account, on the same screen as the confirm action, no separate review step slowing things down

  • Get dollar quick-amounts when buying and percentage quick-amounts when selling

  • Land on a success screen with real order details and a mock performance chart

This allows users to:

  • Enter an amount and see the full order summary, shares, total, account, on the same screen as the confirm action, no separate review step slowing things down

  • Get dollar quick-amounts when buying and percentage quick-amounts when selling

  • Land on a success screen with real order details and a mock performance chart

REFLECTION

I started this wanting to help Fidelity compete harder for younger, first-time investors. That's more of a business strategy question, not something I can truly solve.

Scoping down to UI modernization and step reduction taught me the small, unglamorous decisions, cutting a redundant label, collapsing two screens into one gesture, reordering what shows up first, moved things more than a flashy full redesign would have.

This was a fun side project, worked on and off rather than in one focused sprint. Redesigning something I actually use made this personal in a way! I wasn't assuming someone else's frustration, I was fixing my own.

That's probably the throughline for me as a designer. I care most about the work when the problem is one I've actually felt.

timothy tran

lets connect!