Kotak Neo - Stock Trading App

How user-centered design drove 18x growth and attracted 5 million investors

Industry

Fintech

Client

Kotak Securities

Role

Senior Product Designer

Year

2020-2021

Kotak Securities, part of India's fourth-largest bank, was losing market share to digitally-native competitors like Zerodha. When COVID-19 brought a surge of new investors, these users chose rivals for their superior UX and streamlined workflow.

The Challenge

New investors were choosing competitors over Kotak's platform due to outdated UX and complex onboarding. This 0-to-1 project needed to build a modern trading app that could appeal to the new-age investor and compete in India's booming fintech landscape.

The opportunity: Majority of the new users were first-time investors looking for guidance, while the rest were experienced traders seeking speed.

Kotak Securities app in 2020 vs digital-native competition apps

My Role

Senior Product Designer at Obvious (agency side), embedded with Kotak's digital transformation team.

What I owned:

  • End-to-end design of the order flow — the product's most critical feature

  • Core screens across the trading journey (discovery, portfolio, post-trade tracking)

  • The foundational design system, setting the visual language for the entire product

Visual direction was established collaboratively with the team; I built the system and drove execution across screens.

Team: 1 Design Lead (project management & guidance), me, 2 designers on other features. Client side: SVP of Product leading digital transformation, a backend dev team, and a separate frontend agency.

Process

Research & Framing

We audited competing apps (Zerodha, Groww, Upstox, and others) and spoke with investors ranging from first-timers to daily traders to understand where existing tools fell short.

Two clear user archetypes emerged, which I framed using Jobs-to-be-Done:

  • New investors: "Help me make my first investment without feeling overwhelmed"

  • Experienced traders: "Let me execute trades fast with all critical info at a glance"

A Key Strategic Decision

These two groups needed fundamentally different experiences. Rather than compromise both, the team aligned on a phased release strategy that I helped shape and advocate for: ship Release 1 focused on new investors and long-term investing, then layer advanced trading features in Release 2.

This wasn't just a design decision — it shaped the product roadmap. It de-risked development, let us validate with real users before adding complexity, and gave the team focus.

This clarity guided my design of the core screens: simplified, guided order flows for new investors' confidence, and fast, information-dense interfaces for traders' speed.

Solution

Designing the Order Form

The order form is where users commit real money. Get it wrong, and beginners feel overwhelmed. Oversimplify it, and traders can't execute on their terms. This was the most critical design challenge of the entire product.

Side by side comparison of the two order forms

For New Investors: Progressive Disclosure

I broke complex order decisions into digestible steps with in-context education.

Design approach:

  • Plain language: "Set price limit" not "Limit price"

  • In-context education explaining key terms and concepts

  • Progressive disclosure to reduce cognitive load

  • 2-step flow (order → review → commit) giving users control

  • Prominent total cost display for confidence

3-screen order flow for investors

For Experienced Traders: Information Density & Speed

Traders needed speed without hand-holding—all parameters visible, no progressive steps, while keeping the form clean.

Design approach:

  • Single-screen layout with smart grouping

  • Quick toggles for advanced order types

  • Real-time P&L calculation

  • One-slide order placement

Single-screen order flow for traders

E-Commerce Inspired Order Tracking

Inspired by e-commerce patterns, I added proactive order status updates and clear communication throughout the trading journey. Financial jargon was simplified based on user feedback.

Order status tracking — Proactive communication building trust

Adapting for Desktop

Desktop users (20% of traffic) often had longer research sessions. I optimized the layout for larger screens:

Key differences:

  • Multi-column layout: Watchlist + charts + order form simultaneously

  • Enhanced data density for traders

What stayed consistent: The dual-experience logic—beginners still got progressive flows, traders still got density.

Desktop multi-column view — stock detail page (light mode)

Desktop multi-column view — order form (light mode)

Design System

I built a comprehensive component library that enabled designers and developers to ship features faster. The system established the product's visual language and has been instrumental in scaling Neo — still in use 5 years later.

Design system - Foundations

Design system - Components

Beyond the Order Flow

While the order form was my primary focus, I designed screens across the full trading journey — from stock discovery and watchlists to portfolio tracking and post-trade status. This end-to-end involvement ensured a consistent experience and informed the design system architecture.

Supporting screens across Neo's trading journey

Impact

5M+

User joined, with 70% being first-time investors

18x

Revenue growth in 3 years (2.5x better than industry avg.)

4x

Faster feature delivery through design system

4.4/5

App rating (175k+ reviews) with users praising ease of use and clean design

Neo's user experience was the differentiator that turned a legacy brokerage into a serious competitor against digital-native startups, converting 5 million users (70% first-time investors) in a market where every platform had the same COVID-era tailwind. The design didn't just keep up with the boom; it gave Kotak a reason to be chosen.