MIDF Invest

MIDF Invest had 30,000 app downloads, but the numbers told a troubling story. Registrations dropped. KYC approvals dropped further. Active accounts were rare. Traders who actually executed trades regularly? Even rarer.

The funnel leaked at every stage.

Worse, 70% of traders stopped using the platform when promotions ended. 30% of support requests reflected bad customer service experiences. The data showed a clear pattern: users arrived, tried the platform, got frustrated, and left.

We needed to understand why.

Discovery: What Users Actually Said

We ran a design sprint with stakeholders and users. The goal was simple: understand motivations, mindsets, behaviors, and expectations.

What influenced traders to join:
Marketing from friends. Government backing (regulated by SC). Sharia compliant accounts for Muslim traders. Seasonal promotions during festive periods. Articles and collaborations that built trust.

What frustrated them once inside:
Android app had functionality issues. Fees felt expensive compared to competitors. Customer service didn't respond well, especially during urgent issues like withdrawals or when markets were open. The app looked unpolished, like it was still in beta. Navigation felt indirect and confusing. Withdrawal processes lacked transparency.

What they expected:
Security. Reliability. Clear guidance for beginners. Transparency in processes. Responsive support when problems occurred.

Trust and security weren't nice to haves. They were the foundation. Without them, traders wouldn't stay.

What We Built

Onboarding and Tutorials
New traders felt bombarded. We created guided tutorials showing how to navigate the platform. Tooltips explained key features during onboarding. Users learned where to perform specific tasks without hunting through menus.

Watchlists and Charts
Traders needed tools to study stocks and track performance. We added watchlist creation and integrated chart analysis. Showing top-performing stocks encouraged engagement and gave users clear signals about where opportunities existed.

Email Notifications
To increase reliability and security, we implemented two-factor email notifications. Users got alerts for important actions. Transparency built trust.

Visual Branding Guide
This was critical for handoff. MIDF's internal team consisted of graphic designers and marketers, not UI/UX designers. When we transferred the platform, we needed to ensure they wouldn't accidentally break the visual system.

We created a comprehensive visual branding guide covering cover designs for news, blogs, and articles, title hierarchy, subtitle formatting, image specifications, illustration usage. We provided font pairing previews and styling examples. If they wanted to tweak styles internally, they could reference the guide and request developer changes without guessing.

Without this, handoffs typically turn platforms ugly fast. The guide became a safeguard.

Wireflows and Architecture
Before designing screens, we built wireflows that mapped user journeys and system architecture. This determined how many screens we needed, how modules connected, and where features lived.

Solid architecture meant we could evaluate new ideas against the existing structure. If a feature fit, it got added to the wireflow. If it didn't align, we reconsidered. The wireflow became our source of truth.

Prioritization

We gathered all requirements and ideas from the sprint, then created a priority board. Not everything could ship immediately. We focused on what would fix the leakiest parts of the funnel first:

Improve onboarding clarity. Reduce friction in KYC and account setup. Add transparency to withdrawal processes. Enhance customer service touch points. Build trust through visual polish and reliable functionality.

Lower-priority features got deferred, not discarded. The roadmap stayed flexible.

The Handoff Challenge

Transferring a platform to a team without deep UI/UX expertise is risky. Context gets lost. Decisions that made sense during design get overridden by someone who doesn't understand the rationale.

The visual branding guide solved this. It gave the internal team rules and examples. They could create new content—blog covers, promotional graphics, feature announcements without breaking visual consistency.

We also included styling previews. If they wanted to experiment with typography or color adjustments, they could see how changes would look before asking developers to implement them. This reduced trial-and-error in production.

Impact

The rebrand addressed core user complaints. Navigation became clearer. Onboarding reduced confusion for new traders. Visual polish made the app feel secure and trustworthy instead of unfinished. Transparency in processes like withdrawals reduced anxiety.

By fixing the leaks in the funnel onboarding friction, unclear navigation, poor customer service perception, we gave MIDF a platform that could retain users beyond the initial download.

What I Learned

Leaky funnels aren't always product problems. They're often trust and clarity problems. Users left MIDF not because features were missing, but because the experience didn't feel reliable or transparent.

Visual branding guides aren't just documentation. They're protection against entropy. When non-designers take over, a good guide keeps the system intact.

Wireflows before high fidelity design saves time. Knowing the architecture and user flows upfront prevents rework when you realize screens don't connect logically.

Discovery uncovers what users won't say directly. People don't complain about "lack of transparency." They complain about "confusing withdrawal processes." The job is translating frustrations into fixable problems.