The problem
Every euro leaves a footprint.
Nobody knew what theirs looked like.
Slapping "green" on an ETF is easy. Working out whether it actually aligns with your values? Nearly impossible for most people. The sustainable finance space was — and largely still is — a tangle of vague claims, opaque methodologies, and inaccessible entry points.
Cooler Future's mission: radically transparent, genuinely sustainable investing, accessible to anyone from €20. Not just a nicer version of what already existed — a fundamentally different approach to how the impact of money is shown and understood.
As Lead Designer from day one, my job was to translate that vision into an experience that worked for someone who'd never invested before and someone who'd been investing for years and was actively skeptical of greenwash.
Those are very different people with very different questions. Before I touched a screen, I needed to understand both of them properly.
Research — who are we actually designing for?
Two users. Two jobs to be done.
Neither one is obvious.
User interviews, diary studies, and card sorting sessions across both segments revealed that the product had to do two fundamentally different things at once.
User type 01 — First-time investors
Curious but overwhelmed
They're interested. They feel vaguely guilty their money is doing harm. But "invest in a green fund" is not actionable when you've never invested before and every article is either jargon or patronising. The question they arrive with: "Is this actually better than just leaving it in the bank?" We answered with education woven into the product itself.
User type 02 — Existing investors
Skeptical and evidence-hungry
They're already investing. They've seen greenwash before. They need to be shown — not told — that Cooler Future is different. The question they arrive with: "Prove to me this is actually greener than my current portfolio." We answered with fund transparency as the centrepiece of the experience.
Onboarding — removing friction without removing rigour
Opening a German depot account
is legally complex.
It doesn't have to feel it.
First-time users needed to open a German depot account as part of signup — a KYC-heavy legal process with identity verification, tax information, and regulatory disclosures. This is not optional. Our job was to make it feel like the minimum necessary friction, and no more.
The approach was ruthless prioritisation: anything that could be deferred was deferred, anything legally skippable was removed, every potentially anxiety-inducing step was front-loaded with context. We told users exactly what they'd need before they needed it. No surprises mid-flow. Transparent progress at all times.
Onboarding: the hardest flow to simplify, and the most important to get right
The hardest design problem — showing impact honestly
Climate numbers get thrown around
constantly. Most of them are useless.
How do you visualise the impact of an investment honestly — showing both positive and negative effects, without making things up, without oversimplifying, and without losing people who just want to know if they're doing good?
There was no industry standard to copy. I ran multiple rounds of research sessions, tested different visualisation approaches with real users, and iterated through many directions before landing on an approach that was honest about its own limitations.
The work shown here was the foundation layer — the first steps of a feature that would require significant future development. But establishing the right principles and language was the critical job: don't claim more than you can prove, make the positives as visible as the negatives, and never bury the complexity.
"When you're designing in a space with no established patterns and high stakes for honesty, research isn't a phase. It's the whole job."
James Ciclitira — on Cooler FutureEducation & explore
Trust isn't declared.
It's demonstrated.
For both user types, trust was the barrier. The Explore & Learn section was built to be genuinely educational — not marketing wrapped in content-shaped packaging. Users could inspect exactly how each fund was constructed, what it excluded, and how the green credentials were verified. Transparency was the conversion strategy.
Website — the first touchpoint
The app and website needed
to feel like one world.
While building the mobile app, I was simultaneously designing the marketing site — often the first place a potential user encountered Cooler Future. The visual language, the tone, the hierarchy of trust signals all had to feel cohesive. Two surfaces, one story.
