Public is an investing platform that allows for people to invest in numerous assets such as crypto, stocks, ETF’s, and more all within the app.
Like many other investment apps, Public makes investing accessible for anyone to use and cuts out the exclusivity of building investment portfolios.
This article will detail a few of the pros and cons of the UX within the Public app that I identified while using it recently.
I was first introduced to the app through a sponsorship promotion by one of my favorite financial YouTube creators and decided to try the app out for myself. While my experience was great, I did run into a few pain points that I wanted to discuss along with a few things I really enjoyed as an investment newbie myself.
Encouragement to invest with lack of knowledge
When I first opened that app after following the link provided, I was prompted to select an asset to claim as a free investment, which was apart of the promotion for using this specific YouTubers link.
This free asset was what drew me in to try the product.
However I immediately felt uneasy being prompted to make such an important decision without any prior knowledge of the assets being presented to me.
It would have been helpful to have an overlay option that could be selected to learn more about each asset suggested.
Even a simple arrow indicating the direction of growth or decline that each asset was heading in next to their names would have been helpful.
As a beginner investor with little background in creating an investment portfolio, prior research and current statistics on the assets suggested would have been extremely helpful.
A decrease in content overload would have been helpful as well. There were so many options presented to me to choose from and this also made the decision increasingly pressing and overwhelming.
Clarifying the approval process
Following the selection of an asset to invest in and further onboarding, I was presented with a confirmation screen stating that my investing application was now in an approval process.
I had many questions at this point that I felt went unanswered.
For first time investors, it would helpful to clarify why their investing profile goes through an approval process.
-What aspects of my application are being considered for approval?
-What are the approval odds?
-What determines my approval?
-What if I’m not approved?
It would have been beneficial to provide clarifying content at this step.
Early introduction of information & access to vocabulary
As a product that is marketed and created for investors with different levels of expertise, Public provides many learning resources for new investors such as videos, quizzes, and news articles.
This is great, however, it is introduced further into the users experience and would have been helpful during the initial onboarding phase where I was prompted to commit to an investment.
In addition to this, an overall glossary page would be helpful. There is a lot of new and unique jargon that is used that many new investors, such as myself, may not know the meaning of.
Having access to a list of common vocabulary within the product cuts back on the amount of resources that need to be used, the amount of times I have to leave the app to google something, and lessens any confusion that users may have.
Adding to my watchlist
I’ve added assets to my watchlist before while playing around in the stocks app on my iPhone and the process was clear and the task was easy to complete.
I found that doing the same in the Public app was a tad bit confusing and misleading due to the icon usage for the action.
I don’t know about others, but I don’t commonly associate the star icon as an addition to a watchlist but more so as an addition to a favorites list and your favorite assets are very different from assets you’d like to keep an eye on to determine if they may be a risk to the growth of your portfolio.
Building community & encouraging interaction
I really enjoyed the community building aspect of the application.
When buying, selling, or holding certain assets users are encouraged to post statuses detailing their decision behind these actions. It creates a community that encourages learning and feedback which is extremely helpful for new investors.
In conclusion…
As a investment newbie I found this app fairly easy to use with a few hiccups. Those hiccups of course didn’t completely dampen my experience, however, those moments did lessen my ability to fully trust my decision making while using the app.
