Augmenting the search experience for investors
Avanza
UX & UI
2023
Context
Avanza is a leading digital investment platform in Sweden, used by both novice and experienced investors to research, trade, and manage their portfolios. Search is a core entry point to the product, supporting a wide range of user intents — from quickly finding a specific stock to exploring investment opportunities across markets.
This project focused on improving and aligning the search experience across platforms, ensuring consistency, clarity, and scalability as the product and user needs continued to evolve.
Challenge
Align and improve the search experience on all platforms.
Search was a critical feature for both inexperienced and advanced investors on Avanza's platforms, but the experience had grown fragmented across platforms over time. This led to a lack of clarity and inconsistent results depending on which platform one was using.
- All the 3 platforms had a different design.
- The tech team was consolidating the legacy technologies into a single one.
- This was a great opportunity to align and further develop the search design.
Methods used
To gain better insight into actual usage of the search feature, I used the following methods:
- Quantitative data analysis to better understand the current search behaviors.
- Continuous qualitative user research to continually learn about user needs and attitudes as well as validate our assumptions.
- An unmoderated test to decide between two different design options.
- Expert interviews to better understand the needs of expert users with more demands.
- Live beta test to evaluate the new design in a real context, with a lower risk.
Key Insights
Inexperienced investors…
- don’t know what search-words to write in the search field, or make spelling mistakes,
- don’t necessarily know what they want to buy when they search, but have an idea of industry.
Experienced investors…
- know exactly what they want to buy when they search,
- value quick transactions.
From quantative data, I learned that some popular searches produced results where users had to scroll far down to click
This was because of…
- the ordered list structure,
- how the ranking worked in the back-end.
These insights directly shaped the search logic and interaction patterns by prioritizing information to help decision-making over quick actions.
Final Design
Changed from a sectioned to a mixed list, enabling better positioning of results
- The change enabled the most relevant results appear at the top of the list.
- It helps users find what they are looking for without having to scroll.
Final Design
Added filtering to find what you’re looking for quicker
- Gives a better overview of the different types of results when there is a long list.
- Users gets to the type of results they want quicker without having to scroll through a long list.
Augmenting the search experience for investors
Avanza
UX & UI
2023
Context
Avanza is a leading digital investment platform in Sweden, used by both novice and experienced investors to research, trade, and manage their portfolios. Search is a core entry point to the product, supporting a wide range of user intents — from quickly finding a specific stock to exploring investment opportunities across markets.
This project focused on improving and aligning the search experience across platforms, ensuring consistency, clarity, and scalability as the product and user needs continued to evolve.
Challenge
Align and improve the search experience on all platforms.
Search was a critical feature for both inexperienced and advanced investors on Avanza's platforms, but the experience had grown fragmented across platforms over time. This led to a lack of clarity and inconsistent results depending on which platform one was using.
- All the 3 platforms had a different design.
- The tech team was consolidating the legacy technologies into a single one.
- This was a great opportunity to align and further develop the search design.
Methods used
To gain better insight into actual usage of the search feature, I used the following methods:
- Quantitative data analysis to better understand the current search behaviors.
- Continuous qualitative user research to continually learn about user needs and attitudes as well as validate our assumptions.
- An unmoderated test to decide between two different design options.
- Expert interviews to better understand the needs of expert users with more demands.
- Live beta test to evaluate the new design in a real context, with a lower risk.
Key Insights
Inexperienced investors…
- don’t know what search-words to write in the search field, or make spelling mistakes,
- don’t necessarily know what they want to buy when they search, but have an idea of industry.
Experienced investors…
- know exactly what they want to buy when they search,
- value quick transactions.
From quantative data, I learned that some popular searches produced results where users had to scroll far down to click
This was because of…
- the ordered list structure,
- how the ranking worked in the back-end.
These insights directly shaped the search logic and interaction patterns by prioritizing information to help decision-making over quick actions.
Final Design
Changed from a sectioned to a mixed list, enabling better positioning of results
- The change enabled the most relevant results appear at the top of the list.
- It helps users find what they are looking for without having to scroll.
Final Design
Added filtering to find what you’re looking for quicker
- Gives a better overview of the different types of results when there is a long list.
- Users gets to the type of results they want quicker without having to scroll through a long list.
Final Design
Prioritized helpful data over seldom used buy/sell button
After testing, getting feedback, and internal discussion, I removed the buy/sell buttons and used this space for helpful data.
Added more guiding data on search results
- The type of security was added to the results to replace section headers.
- The industry was added on stocks and type of fund was added on funds.
I intentionally deprioritized actions to make more room for helpful and guiding information for all users.
Outcome
After receiving positive first reactions and feedback from the Beta testers, we released the updates to all users on Avanza.
After the release, we continued to hear positive feedback, and did not receive any complaints or major negative feedback about the changes.
This created a shared foundation for future search improvements, which previously hadn’t existed.
Augmenting the search experience for investors
Avanza
UX & UI
2023
Context
Avanza is a leading digital investment platform in Sweden, used by both novice and experienced investors to research, trade, and manage their portfolios. Search is a core entry point to the product, supporting a wide range of user intents — from quickly finding a specific stock to exploring investment opportunities across markets.
This project focused on improving and aligning the search experience across platforms, ensuring consistency, clarity, and scalability as the product and user needs continued to evolve.
Challenge
Align and improve the search experience on all platforms.
Search was a critical feature for both inexperienced and advanced investors on Avanza's platforms, but the experience had grown fragmented across platforms over time. This led to a lack of clarity and inconsistent results depending on which platform one was using.
- All the 3 platforms had a different design.
- The tech team was consolidating the legacy technologies into a single one.
- This was a great opportunity to align and further develop the search design.
Methods used
To gain better insight into actual usage of the search feature, I used the following methods:
- Quantitative data analysis to better understand the current search behaviors.
- Continuous qualitative user research to continually learn about user needs and attitudes as well as validate our assumptions.
- An unmoderated test to decide between two different design options.
- Expert interviews to better understand the needs of expert users with more demands.
- Live beta test to evaluate the new design in a real context, with a lower risk.
Key Insights
Inexperienced investors…
- don’t know what search-words to write in the search field, or make spelling mistakes,
- don’t necessarily know what they want to buy when they search, but have an idea of industry.
Experienced investors…
- know exactly what they want to buy when they search,
- value quick transactions.
From quantative data, I learned that some popular searches produced results where users had to scroll far down to click
This was because of…
- the ordered list structure,
- how the ranking worked in the back-end.
These insights directly shaped the search logic and interaction patterns by prioritizing information to help decision-making over quick actions.
Final Design
Changed from a sectioned to a mixed list, enabling better positioning of results
- The change enabled the most relevant results appear at the top of the list.
- It helps users find what they are looking for without having to scroll.
Final Design
Added filtering to find what you’re looking for quicker
- Gives a better overview of the different types of results when there is a long list.
- Users gets to the type of results they want quicker without having to scroll through a long list.
Final Design
Prioritized helpful data over seldom used buy/sell button
After testing, getting feedback, and internal discussion, I removed the buy/sell buttons and used this space for helpful data.
Added more guiding data on search results
- The type of security was added to the results to replace section headers.
- The industry was added on stocks and type of fund was added on funds.
I intentionally deprioritized actions to make more room for helpful and guiding information for all users.
Outcome
After receiving positive first reactions and feedback from the Beta testers, we released the updates to all users on Avanza.
After the release, we continued to hear positive feedback, and did not receive any complaints or major negative feedback about the changes.
This created a shared foundation for future search improvements, which previously hadn’t existed.