8 Elements of a Great Fund Explorer [INFOGRAPHIC]

Firstly, what is a fund explorer? AKA a Fund Center, a fund explorer is simply a web page that is dedicated to displaying all of an asset manager’s investment products in one place. They are normally found on larger fund managers’ websites, since having hundreds or even thousands of funds necessitates an easier way to locate investment data. Fidelity’s ‘investment finder’ for example, contains 3,200 products; J.P.Morgan’s Fund Explorer contains 866 funds and Franklin Templeton’s Mutual Fund Price & Performance page contains 762 share classes.

Based on our research, as much as 70% of a fund manager’s website traffic goes to the fund pricing and performance content. That’s why we’ve taken a look at which elements of a fund explorer are worth exploring.

What elements on a fund explorer make for a better user experience for investors?

(Click on the image for the full-size version)

1. Fund Product Filters

The filters are an essential ingredient of a fund explorer since the whole objective is allowing the user to locate the investment product as quickly as possible. Filters can be used to create a ‘faceted search’ and also remain fixed as the user scrolls down.

2. Easy-to-read Fund Facts

Much the same as a well-designed fund factsheet, the ‘fund facts’ or whichever term you decide to use, should take a more condensed design approach so the user can quickly absorb high level data without having to scroll down the page.

3. Interactive Performance Charts

We’ve all moved on from Flash-based or static image chart engines (haven’t we?!). With so many great charting libraries available there’s no excuse for not making your charts interactive, touch-enabled and responsive.

4. Type-ahead Search

Use a search like Google, where the results start appearing as you type. This will massively improve the investor’s user experience as they will (in most cases) negate the need to navigate to a search results page.

5. Dedicated Product Pages

Again, seems obvious… but the fund explorer should only act as a gateway to each product. If you don’t create dedicated product pages you will miss out on valuable SEO rankings, but also struggle to send investors dedicated URLs.

6. Fund Managers Carousel

A carousel is a nice way to present a series of content without taking up a lot of page real estate. But it’s not going to work for everyone, so you should consider which layout component will best present your fund managers.

7. Key Documents

Make sure all the key documents are easy to find. These documents may also be present in a document library on your website, but where they are in the context of their investment product in a fund explorer is also key.

8. Accordion Interface

An accordion interface is a great way to allow users to expand and contract investment data without them leaving the page. It’s also particularly useful for grouping share classes within investments.

So, however you decide to present your investments on your website, it’s worth spending considerable time on your fund explorer and product pages since that’s where your investors will be spending most of their time.

Take your fund data to the next level with an interactive Fund Center using Kurtosys.