Alpaca
Designing a commission-free stock trading platform for the API-first generation of retail investors.
Role: Lead Product Designer
Overview
Alpaca needed a consumer-facing trading experience that matched the trust and reliability expected in fintech, while staying approachable for new investors.
Problem
The existing interface assumed heavy financial literacy and created friction at every step — from account setup to executing a first trade.
Approach
We ran discovery sessions with both novice and experienced traders to map where confidence broke down. From that, I built a design system grounded in clarity: progressive disclosure of complexity, inline education, and a visual hierarchy that surfaced the right information at the right moment.
Outcome
Reduced time-to-first-trade by 40%. Onboarding completion improved significantly after simplifying the KYC flow into a guided, step-by-step process.