Increasing User Trust by 29%

Concept Testing

Company

Questrade

Industries

FinTech

Date

Nov 2023

Questrade is Canada's largest independent online brokerage firm. It provides self-directed and managed investing platforms, enabling Canadians to trade stocks, ETFs, and other financial products through intuitive digital tools.

Dashboard Sidebar Close Up
Dashboard Sidebar Close Up
Dashboard Sidebar Close Up

About the Project

Questrade was exploring new features to improve user trust and increase conversion rates in their point-of-sale (POS) flow. While the product team had several hypotheses, there was little clarity on how users would actually respond to these proposed elements, especially those related to transparency and confidence in purchase decisions.

Impact

Through concept testing, we evaluated five key hypotheses centered around transparency, decision-making support, and user confidence. Based on participant feedback:


  • We highlighted transparency content, making “What’s Not Included in Coverage” permanently visible — leading to a 29% increase in reported trust scores


  • We replaced an "I Don't Know" checkbox with additional information on where to find home details, after finding that users preferred filling out forms accurately and diligently rather than quickly to receive more accurate quotes


By focusing on what users actually found useful, we helped the team avoid investing in features that didn’t improve trust, making sure designs put into development would yield high results.

Full Dashboard
Full Dashboard
Full Dashboard

The Process

Working alongside the Senior UX Researcher, I led moderated usability sessions with users actively shopping for financial products:


  • Converted five hypotheses into questions to be tackled during usability sessions


  • Recruited 8 participants (ages 25–55) who were evaluating similar offerings online


  • Conducted 1:1 sessions to evaluate their reactions to proposed UI elements and flows


  • Captured real-time behaviors and emotional responses to optional disclosures, error-prevention mechanisms, and confidence-based inputs


  • Synthesized findings in Miro and presented actionable recommendations to the product team


This research helped bridge the gap between stakeholder assumptions and actual user needs, giving the team a clearer roadmap to increase conversions with confidence.

Extracted currency modules
Extracted currency modules
Extracted currency modules

What I'd Do Differently

  • Pre/Post Emotional Response Tracking

    Would help measure whether designs increased confidence.


  • Test Across Financial Literacy Levels

    To assess how design changes perform for lower-literacy users.