Fintech
Designed under One Week Wonders for Tirnu by Hitechies Enterprise Solutions BV in Belgium. Commissioned directly by Pramod to build an autonomous 0-to-1 platform shifting conservative bank savers into stocks and digital assets. While I led end-to-end product design across the entire ecosystem—delivering the high-conversion web landing page and full mobile application architecture—this case study deep-dives into our highest-friction product challenge: architecting the UX logic and order interaction flows alongside Ariq Ibrahim (UI Design) to transform intimidating trading terminals into a calm, guarded wealth experience.
CONTEXT & FRICTION
Bridging conservative banking with digital assets
The core mandate from Pramod was straightforward: create an approachable platform that helps traditional European bank savers transition into digital assets without terminal intimidation or fear of costly mistakes.
The terminal shock
Traditional exchanges present flashing red-green candlestick bars and intimidating order books from second one. For European retail savers wanting disciplined long-term wealth, this aggressive terminal UI triggered immediate loss aversion and halted onboarding.
PROJECT BRIEF: RETAIL ASSET ACCESSIBILITY
Core requirement: Empower users to feel in control and safe without terminal complexity
Decision paralysis
Novice investors struggle to interpret raw market volatility without context. Lacking clear asset indicators, users experienced cognitive fatigue and abandoned trades before opening a position.
Unprotected execution
Standard trading interfaces blur the boundary between market buys and limit orders. Users feared accidental clicks, unexpected slippage, or irreversible execution mistakes.
BEHAVIORAL DYNAMICS
The risk-averse european investor mindset
European savers prioritize capital protection, fee transparency, and emotional calm over speculative hype.
The conservative saver
Young professionals allocating monthly savings into blue-chip assets like Bitcoin or tech equities. Used to calm banking apps, they reject aggressive high-stress charts and demand clean portfolio breakdowns with upfront fee clarity.
Key Need: Calming curves, portfolio allocation clarity, upfront fee transparency.
The tactical explorer
Users wanting market context without decoding complex technical indicators. They make purchase decisions through community sentiment, curated news, and verified holder counts.
Key Need: Integrated sentiment buzz, curated education tabs, on-demand charts.
KEY DECISIONS
Progressive disclosure over monolithic terminals
We rejected copying heavy trading terminals directly to protect the psychological comfort of retail bank users making their first investments.
Direction rejected: raw trading terminal by default
Cloning a dense trading terminal with live order books and aggressive candlestick charts was rejected because it directly contradicted our primary brief objective: keeping users empowered, in control, and safe.
Drawbacks: Cognitive Overload • High Anxiety • High Drop-Off
Direction selected: calm area curves with guarded execution
We set a calm, clean line curve as the default view. Advanced instruments were tucked into a modular "Enhanced Chart Settings" sheet, paired with an explicit 2-step order preview buffer before any funds leave the account.
Benefits: Banking Friendly • Pro Tools on Demand • Zero Confusion
COLLABORATION & COMPROMISE
The chart density dilemma: birth of chart settings
Aligning foundational UX wireframes with final visual design alongside Ariq Ibrahim under Pramod's banking mandate.
Initial technical density vs. progressive disclosure
Early in the sprint, benchmarking mainstream social trading platforms, our initial instinct was to expose comprehensive technical indicators and market depth directly on the asset detail screen.
However, during review with Pramod, the screen felt overwhelming for conservative banking customers. Forcing full market density degraded the clean simplicity users expect from wealth platforms.
The Design Compromise: Instead of choosing between extreme simplicity or technical clutter, we engineered Progressive Disclosure. We established a clean, single-line curve as the Default Chart and moved advanced tools—candlesticks, volume overlays, and indicators—into a dedicated Chart Settings modal. First-time savers stay calm, while experienced investors configure their view in two taps.
Low-Fidelity Logic (Rajesh)
FIGMA: WIREFRAME / INTERACTION LOGIC
Information hierarchy, modal trigger boundaries, layout constraints
Step 1: Structural UX & Guardrails
High-Fidelity Polish (Ariq Ibrahim)
FIGMA: UI KIT & DESIGN SYSTEM
Tokenized styling, responsive states, soft green calm visual aesthetic
Step 2: Component Architecture & Theme
THE TRADE FLOW
The decision-to-execution loop
Collapsing fragmented tab hopping and order ambiguity into a unified flow completed in under 30 seconds.
Old Experience
Legacy Flow: 5 Disjointed Steps (High Friction & Execution Panic)
Start
→
Anxiety
Terminal Shock
Candlestick & order book
→
Tab Hopping
External Feeds
Check Twitter & Reddit
→
Ambiguity
Unclear Order Type
Market vs Limit confusion
→
No Guardrail
Instant Fill Risk
No confirmation pause
→
Hidden Spread
Surprise Slippage
Unexpected price delta
→
High Drop-Off
Swipe or scroll horizontally to follow the flow.
New Experience
Tirnu Trade Loop: The Decision-to-Execution Flow (< 30 Seconds Total)
Start
→
Calm HUD
Default Area Chart
Soft green line curve
→
Pro Modular
Chart Settings
On-demand indicators
→
Order Clarity
Market / Limit
Explicit order modes
→
Safety Buffer
Preview Order
15s frozen quote
→
< 30s Execution
Swipe or scroll horizontally to follow the flow.
CORE UI & SYSTEMS
System architecture designed in Figma
Four primary interface systems engineered to maintain banking simplicity without stripping away functional trading depth.
Asset detail, AI insights & default calm chart
The Bitcoin asset view ($118,603.40) defaults to a serene green line curve with holder volume and sentiment buzz. Contextual AI Risk Scores provide objective sentiment summaries rather than speculative gambling triggers.
FIGMA: ASSET DETAILS & DEFAULT CHART
Calm area line curve paired with touch interaction guides
Modular chart settings modal
A dedicated settings bottom sheet housing on-demand technical tools. Users toggle Candlesticks, AI Insight overlays, Volume bars, and Sentiment Overlays whenever they require deeper technical scrutiny.
FIGMA: CHART SETTINGS SHEET
Modular progressive disclosure sheet isolating technical indicators
Guarded orders: market vs. limit
Clean architectural separation between instant market execution and price-triggered limit orders. Both views establish explicit price boundaries, fee summaries, and percentage selectors.
FIGMA: MARKET ORDER & LIMIT ORDER DETAILS
Explicit trade parameters preventing execution ambiguity
Preview order & error recovery
The Preview Order sheet provides an intentional confirmation buffer before capital commitments. Backed by non-destructive error handling that retains user inputs if an issuing bank rejects the transaction.
FIGMA: PREVIEW ORDER & ERROR CASE
Confirmation buffer paired with graceful error recovery states
DEFENSIVE DESIGN
Financial safeguards & error prevention
Retail trust is protected when error prevention and high-stakes market constraints are baked directly into the transaction layer.
15-Second price quote expiration
Volatile Quote Freeze: In the `Preview Order` sheet, crypto prices are frozen for exactly 15 seconds with a visual countdown timer. If the window lapses before execution, the app asks to refresh the quote—eliminating surprise slippage for the user.
Thumb-zone ergonomics & guardrails
Reachability Partition: The top 60% of the viewport is reserved strictly for calm chart reading. All interactive capital selectors (percentage pills, order toggles, and swipe execution) are anchored in the ergonomic lower thumb zone, preventing accidental taps.
Synthetic multi-persona stress-testing
Adversarial Heuristic Sparring: To accelerate risk discovery within a fast 3-week sprint, I leveraged AI workflows simulating three critical personas—an anxious first-time retail saver, an active day trader, and an EU compliance auditor. This multi-angle critique allowed us to pressure-test slippage edge cases, refine warning microcopy, and validate the 2-step preview buffer before client review sessions.
EU MiCA Compliant risk labels
Contextual Risk Banners: Volatility warnings and asset risk scores are embedded contextually alongside AI insights rather than jarring barrier modals, ensuring European regulatory compliance without intimidating users.
RESULTS & DELIVERY RIGOR
Live production & closed-loop architecture
Delivered within a dedicated 3-week sprint under One Week Wonders and approved by Pramod (Hitechies BV). The product system is now live in production under Swiss regulatory supervision, tier-1 institutional custody, and a closed-loop transaction architecture.
Market Credibility
Live
Production platform
Live in market under Swiss VQF / FINMA regulatory compliance.
Institutional Security
Fireblocks
Custody infrastructure
Secured by tier-1 institutional custody for 50+ digital assets.
Interaction Efficiency
2-Layer
Unified order flow
Collapsed 5 disjointed steps into a calm view + preview buffer.
System Completeness
100%
Closed-loop architecture
Zero unmapped states: all error cases, timeouts, and boundaries accounted for.
Swiss regulatory affiliation & custody security
The 0-to-1 design system laid the product bedrock for Tirnu's production launch under Tirnu GmbH (CHE-283.006.722), operating under FINMA-recognised VQF compliance and institutional Fireblocks custody for over 50+ digital assets.
Calm investing realized: strategy mirroring
Our UX rationale for replacing noisy social trading feeds was materialized into Tirnu's core "Strategy Mirroring" feature—allowing retail investors to follow transparent strategies on a non-discretionary basis while remaining fully in control.
REFLECTION
The core principle from this project
"Good financial design is not about hiding powerful features. It is about respecting human attention. When you replace intimidating charts with calm defaults and guard transactions with clear previews, investing ceases to feel like gambling and becomes an empowering financial habit."
