01 · Product Redesign · Fintech
Shoonya
Shoonya's mobile landing screen was doing four jobs at once. I split it in two: Home for the user's own money, Market for what the market is doing.
- Role
- Company
- Status
- Surface
- Scope
- Jobs on one landing screen, split across Home and Market
- 4 → 2
- Competing apps benchmarked
- 5
- Evidence sources: benchmark, public threads, UX principles
- 3
- Internal behavioural data behind the redesign
- 0
Scope, not results. The redesign has not shipped, so there are no outcome numbers yet.
Before
Landing screen today
After
Home, final UI
Market, final UI
(01) Overview
Shoonya is Finvasia's retail trading platform. The brief was to refresh its mobile dashboard so it could take new trading features and read more clearly.
At the same time, Shoonya's product ecosystem was expanding with more trading and investment capabilities, and every one of them wanted a place on that screen.
(02) The Problem
Every capability Shoonya added had landed on the same screen. By the time I opened it, one scroll held four jobs, and nothing on it ranked one above another. Total Funds and Add Funds sat between two discovery modules.
Market Discovery
Indices, Collections, Volume Gainers, Invest by Sectors.
Account Utility
Total Funds and Add Funds.
Product Discovery
Tools, AI-driven insights, and investment content.
Market Intelligence
FII/DII provisional cash, Stock Events, News.
Key Observation
The screen wasn't serving one clear user intent. It was trying to be Market, Discover, Tools and Account Utility at the same time.
A tidier layout would have moved the same modules around and kept all four jobs. I wanted one screen for each kind of question.
Was the problem really the arrangement of content, or was the entry-point architecture itself becoming overloaded?
(03) Users
One landing screen, four kinds of Shoonya user, each arriving with a different question.
Beginner
“I don't know where to start.” Needs learning, simple product discovery, contextual guidance and an easy first action.
Investor
“I want to manage and grow my investments.” Needs the portfolio, mutual funds and SIPs, IPOs, and discovery that fits.
Active trader
“I know what I want to trade.” Needs positions, orders, the watchlist, trading tools and a market snapshot.
Advanced trader
“I need efficient access to powerful trading workflows.” Needs F&O Edge, advanced charting, scalping and the option chain.
These are working types, not research personas. No internal behavioural data stood behind them. Shoonya needs one common starting point, with relevance following each user's intent and experience.
(04) My Role
Senior Product Designer at Finvasia. I ran the benchmark, framed the hypothesis, and drew the Home and Market wireframes.
(05) Scope & Constraints
- No internal behavioural data. Claims like “users prefer X” were off the table from the start.
- Every capability on the old screen had to stay reachable from the new ones.
- Information architecture for two screens, Home and Market.
- Phone only, iOS and Android.
- Wireframes first, then final UI for both screens.
(06) Process: How I Got There
I noticed
The dashboard was doing too many jobs at once.
Market discovery, product discovery, account utility and market intelligence, stacked in a single scroll.
I questioned
Could one landing screen serve every kind of Shoonya user?
The beginner, the investor, the active trader and the advanced trader each opened the app with a different question. The old screen gave all four the same scroll.
I explored
Pulling the user's world apart from the market's.
Rather than rearrange sections, I asked whether Shoonya needed two entry points: one about the user, one about the market.
(07) Process: Hypothesis
Hypothesis
Home is built around the user's world in Shoonya. Market is built around what is happening in the market.
Home answers
- What is happening with my money?
- What can I do next?
- What can I discover?
- What can I learn?
Market answers
- What is happening in the market?
- Which sectors are moving?
- Which stocks are gaining or losing?
- What are institutions doing?
- What market events should I know about?
Neither screen has to show every Shoonya capability, and neither has to show everything to everyone.
(08) Process: Evidence
With no internal data, I worked from three sources.
A benchmark of five competing apps. Public threads and store reviews. And established principle: Nielsen's heuristics, discoverability, and the mental models people bring from other apps, and cutting effort a screen doesn't need to ask for. The benchmark looked at how each platform balances trading, personal finance, discovery and complexity.
| Competitor | Key Pattern | Shoonya Implication | Design Area |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sahi | Strong focus on trading workflows. | Keep search, watchlist and core trading workflows easy to reach. | Core trading hierarchy |
| Groww | Strong investment and discovery ecosystem alongside core investing workflows. | Discovery can coexist with trading, but should not overwhelm core tasks. | Discover & Invest |
| Kotak Neo | Portfolio, watchlist and discovery/trading capabilities are prominent. | Keep account state and instrument discovery accessible. | Portfolio + Watchlist |
| Dhan | Strong emphasis on advanced trading tools and active-trader workflows. | Expose differentiated trading tools, but group them coherently. | Trading Tools |
| 5paisa | Gives every feature equal priority and its own entry point. | Trading tools should have clear purpose rather than becoming a generic feature grid. | Trading Tools |
The benchmark pointed one way: Home should be about the user and open to discovery, and Market should hold the deeper market intelligence.
The public threads complained about structure, across several competitors. One thread argued a basic app was better because it had fewer features. Another asked its platform to split into core modes instead of adding to the same navigation. Store reviews asked for a more focused interface and a dashboard that explains itself.
Important
Public reviews and community discussions are directional signals, not representative user research. I used them to form hypotheses, not to validate them.
(09) Process: Home
Home answers what is happening with the user's money, and what they can do next. I ranked it in four bands, in this order.
- 01
My Money
Portfolio value, today's P&L, overall P&L, and quick access to holdings, positions and orders.
- 02
My Actions
Watchlist, Buy and Sell, trading tools, Add Funds.
- 03
Products & Opportunities
Mutual funds and SIPs, IPOs, NFOs, bonds, MTF.
- 04
Learn & Explore
Explainers and market concepts, placed next to the products they explain. For a beginner, this is how they find out what an SIP is and whether it fits them.
Moving every old module into the new Home would have rebuilt the original problem. The ranking is what stops Home turning into a feature catalogue.
(10) Process: Market
Market answers what the market is doing. Home keeps a glance at it, and Market holds everything deeper.
- Key indices with live movement. Tap one for detail.
- Market movers: top gainers, losers and volume shockers, one tab each.
- Top sectors with percentage change and a mini chart.
- FII and DII activity: daily net buying and selling, with the trend.
- Market events: corporate actions, the results calendar, IPO listings.
- News and research.
(11) Outcomes & Lessons
Home and Market are through to final UI, and Home's ranking survived it: My Money, then actions, then discovery, then learning.
The split is still a hypothesis. The benchmark, the public threads and the principles shaped it. None of them proves it, and there are no outcome numbers until it ships.
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