PARTNER
We designed an app that allows women to invest in causes they care about
When it comes to finance, there is overwhelming evidence that women invest less frequently than men. In 2015 Fidelity came to the Stanford d.school and challenged us to answer the question : “How might we get women to invest more?” We used the design thinking process to come up with innovative solutions to the problem. Here is an overview of our process:
01. Empathize
We empathized with men and women of all ages about why they do or do not invest and gained some interesting insights. Here were our key findings:
Women would rather invest in something they care about to feel they are making an impact
Women do not invest as much as men because their friends do not talk about it often
Women are less risk averse.
02. Define
From these insights, we chose to focus on building women’s confidence to invest in the things they cared about, which is where the idea for Color My Cause arose.
03. Ideate, Prototype, and Test
Color My Cause is an app where female investors can see what causes they are investing in through associating colors with different causes. With social investment as the core of the project, Color My Cause allows people to see what social causes businesses supported alongside traditional indicators of success in the stock market. This platform would ultimately allow people to invest in what they are passionate about and make money at the same time.
Learnings
This project showed me how powerful focusing on women’s empowerment and confidence can be. I was on an all female team filled with designers with backgrounds in business, material science, education, and sustainability. Our team dynamics were amazing, and the value of interdisciplinary teamwork was apparent. I also was able to speak with many women across the country and better understand their needs and think about creative, colorful ways to spur fiscal equity. Although Color My Cause did not come to fruition, we tested our prototype on Fidelity, IDEO, and Google employees and received positive feedback. Social investing has also become more popular in subsequent years.
Since this project, I’ve thought a lot about how to bring female empowerment into my design projects. In a mostly male dominated product designer world, there is a need to develop design teams with more women to create powerful solutions for women.
#women #femaleempowerment #investing #socialcauses #finance #uiuxdesign #appdesign