Designing for patience: lessons from a calm investing app

When Orbit came to us, their prototype looked like every trading app: red and green numbers, a ticker, notifications for every move. People signed up, felt anxious and left.

Start with the behavior you want

We interviewed twenty first-time investors. None of them wanted to trade more. They wanted to feel they were doing the right thing, and to stop worrying about it.

If the home screen shows today's price, people think about today. Show them their goal, and they think about the year.

What we changed

• Goals replaced the portfolio chart on the home screen
• Daily moves moved one tap away
• Notifications became a weekly summary
• Onboarding asked about plans before preferences

Day-30 retention more than doubled. Calm, it turns out, is a feature.