Can finance benefit from better design? Wealthfront thinks so, as they have recently announced the hiring of Kate Aronowitz as Vice President of Design. Aronowitz arrives from Facebook, after previous stops at tech giants eBay and Linkedin. At Linkedin, she was the firm’s first Director of Design, then moving to Facebook for six years and led many of the firm’s design initiatives as it grew from 145 million to over 1.2 billion users.
With her arrival to Wealthfront, Aronowitz will be tasked with creating designs that communicate the firm’s sophisticated financial advisory product while keeping the overall experience simple to understand for users. The arrival occurs as Wealthfront has already gained a positive image in regards to its design and user experience for both its browser and app based interface.
According to Aronowitz in an interview with Fast Company, the existing focus on design is part of what attracted her to Wealthfront. She explained that like in her previous positions with Facebook and Ebay where the firms aimed to connect users to the product’s mission, a similar focus exists at Wealthfront where Aronowitz stated “Just like Facebook wanted to connect the world and eBay wanted to democratize commerce, Wealthfront has a big mission to make investment approachable for anyone”.
Aronowitz added that finance is a sector that can benefit from improved design as personal finances are “extremely emotional”, but user interfaces are “intimidating”. As such, she explained that “Design can have a huge role in helping people know what they want to do with their money, and help manage it.”
