Rebuilding the portfolio screen from the ground up

The portfolio screen is the most-viewed surface in the app. Over the past year we rebuilt it from scratch. Here is what we learned trying to serve two very different people with one layout.

A first-time investor opens the app to answer one question: am I okay? A full-time trader opens it to answer twenty. The old screen leaned toward the second group, and the data showed newer customers bouncing off the density. Many would open the app, glance at a wall of numbers and close it again within seconds, without finding the one thing they came to see.

At the same time, our most active customers told us the screen was too slow for them. Information they needed was spread across several places, and getting from their overview to a specific position took more taps than it should. We were failing both groups in different ways.

Starting with research

Before drawing anything, the team spent three months talking to customers. We ran more than a hundred interviews across experience levels, from people who had made their first investment that week to people who trade for a living. We asked them to open the app in front of us and talk through what they were looking for, what they found, and what they ignored.

A pattern appeared quickly. Almost everyone started by looking for the same few things: the total value of their portfolio, whether it was up or down, and by how much. What they did next depended entirely on who they were. Beginners usually stopped there. Experienced investors wanted to dig into individual positions, recent orders and performance over different time periods.

One screen, two mindsets

The breakthrough was to stop treating detail as something you add and start treating it as something you reveal. The default view answers the simple question calmly, at a glance. Everything else, including the charts, the breakdowns and the order history, is one deliberate tap away, not competing for attention on arrival.

Density isn’t the enemy. Unrequested density is.

We tested more than a dozen versions with customers across experience levels. The version that won was not the prettiest in isolation. It was the one that let people find their own depth without being handed everyone else’s. Beginners saw a calm summary. Experienced customers learned within a day where the detail lived and could reach it quickly.

What we removed

A large part of the project was taking things away. The old screen had grown over several years, with each new feature adding another element. We audited every item on it and asked whether it earned its place on the first view. Roughly a third did not.

Some of those elements moved deeper into the app. Others were removed entirely after we found that very few customers used them. Every removal was tested, and in a few cases we brought something back after customers told us they missed it. The goal was never minimalism for its own sake, but a first screen where everything visible was something most people wanted.

Small things that mattered

A number that counts up when you open the app instead of just appearing. A single accent colour reserved strictly for gains and losses, never for branding, so green and red always mean the same thing. Type that lines up in columns so figures can be scanned, not read. None of these are visible as features. All of them changed how the screen feels.

We also changed the default time period for the performance chart. The old screen showed the day’s movement first, which encouraged people to react to short-term noise. The new one remembers the period you last chose, and for new customers it defaults to a longer view. It is a small change, but it shifts attention away from daily swings and toward the long term.

Accessibility and speed

The new screen was built to work well for everyone. Colour is never the only signal. Gains and losses also carry a plus or minus sign and an arrow, so they remain clear for customers with colour vision deficiency. Every element works with screen readers, text scales with system settings without breaking the layout, and all interactive elements meet minimum touch-target sizes.

We also made it faster. The screen now loads the portfolio summary first and fills in secondary details a moment later, so the most important number appears almost instantly, even on slower connections. On older devices, the new screen opens more than twice as fast as the one it replaces.

What we learned

The biggest lesson was that serving two audiences is less about compromise and more about sequence. Beginners and experts want most of the same information. They just want it in a different order and at a different pace. Getting that order right mattered more than any individual visual decision.

The new portfolio screen is rolling out to all customers over the coming weeks. As always, we will keep listening, and we expect it to keep changing as we learn how people use it.