Effinity

Conducted user research and created experiences for a platform to make financial literacy a fun, gamified, and engaging experience for Gen-Z learners.

1-3 mins

Time to Learning

1-3 mins

Time to Learning

94%
Onboarding Completion

100%

Experience Satisfaction

100%

Experience Satisfaction

Background

With financial education at an all-time-low, Effinity was created as a financial learning platform for Gen-Z designed to make personal finance more engaging and accessible.

When I joined Effinity, the platform already had a product strategy in place, but one critical area needed design was the onboarding. The goal was to design an onboarding experience to drive adoption and engagement to the platform.

I led the design of Effinity's onboarding flow, from research to implementation.

The Problem

Signing up is a user's first glimpse into the Effinity experience. Without a clear and structured onboarding experience, students may drop off before discovering the value of the learning platform. A strong onboarding flow bridges the gap between sign-ups and active learning, guiding students through key features while making finance feel approachable. When done right, it boosts activation rates, encourages early lesson completion, and keeps users coming back, turning first-time visitors into lifelong learners. We needed to excel at these metrics:

Onboarding Rate

Time to Learning

Qualitative User Feedback

Adoption Rate

The Primary Audience

I conducted a round of research—5 exploratory interviews, to uncover user frustrations in learning finance and uncover their learning preferences.

I conducted two research rounds - 5 exploratory interviews with accountants and finance professionals, and 4 interviews with small business owners managing their own accounting—to uncover user frustrations and opportunities.

"What are the biggest challenges you've faced while trying to learn finance?"

What has helped you learn about finance the most?

What features or benefits would make such a platform worth the investment for you?

"A lot of contradicting information out there - just want a single source of truth!"

- Sam

“Talking to more people with more experience than me.”
- Sam

"I love me a good incentive."

- Sam

"Finance is intimidating to learn alone"

-Tammy

"I struggle with math and do not like things to be text-heavy."

-Tammy

"I would want ways to access and utilize my money, like virtual games"

-Tammy

❗️ What are the Core Challenges?

Many users find financial topics confusing or intimidating, making it easy to give up.
If onboarding feels like a lecture, users lose interest fast.
People get overwhelmed when hit too much info at once.
Credibility and a single source of truth is what users strive to have.

Product Strategy

How might we design an engaging onboarding experience that simplifies information, maintains user interest, and builds trust?

Product Strategy

Learning from Competitors

Several successful platforms in the micro-learning and retention space:

Duolingo makes onboarding digestible with bite-sized and visually appealing with their UI elements.
Zogo personalizes onboarding by integrating rewards, progress tracking, and gamified learning paths.
Chime streamlines sign-ups, allowing users to open an account in just three minutes.

Effinity’s onboarding should be engaging, personalized, and efficient. This means information should be gradual, maintaining the gamification even across onboarding, and a streamlined flow to reduce drop-off and guide users to their first lesson quickly.

Several successful platforms in the micro-learning and retention space have shown how gamification, personalization, and progressive learning can drive engagement from the start. Effinity’s onboarding can take inspiration from these proven strategies:

Duolingo makes onboarding fun and frictionless with bite-sized lessons, interactive steps, and gamification.
Zogo personalizes onboarding by integrating rewards, progress tracking, and gamified learning paths.
Chime streamlines sign-ups, allowing users to open an account in just three minutes.

Effinity’s onboarding should follow a similar engaging, step-by-step approach to keep students motivated.
Effinity can also use personalization to create a more dynamic, gamified onboarding experience.
A shorter onboarding flow for Effinity can reduce drop-off rates and ensure students quickly reach their first lesson.

Learning from Competitors

The Solution

Based on research and competitor insights, I identified four key UX principles that shaped the onboarding flow, making it more intuitive and rewarding from the start:

The Solution

Bite-Sized Interactions

Visually Appealing Elements

Learning Through Your Hobbies

Rewarding Users for Quick Wins

Wireframes

As we shaped the onboarding experience, we broke it into bite-sized, interactive steps—using a progress slider to give users a sense of momentum and clarity. By removing pagination and simplifying the layout with intuitive placeholders, we kept the focus on ease, flow, and finishing that first step with confidence.

Illustrations

I explored across the web to source the perfect digital assets, selecting ones that would bring Effinity’s design to life. To create a warm and playful tone, I curated 3D visuals with bold color palettes that aligned with Gen Z aesthetics.

The Handoff

To ensure the onboarding felt polished and intuitive, I worked closely with developers in daily standups to refine key interactions—like simplifying select states and improving the flow of progress sliders. These small tweaks made the experience smoother and more visually clear, helping users focus on learning instead of getting stuck on clunky UI.