Robinhood says yes to regulators and no to gamification

Robinhood has agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine and change its practices to settle Massachusetts’ securities regulators’ claim that the firm led inexperienced investors to make unsafe investments.

The news: Due to the settlement Robinhood will be doing away with some of its most famous features like emojis as well as “permanently cease the future use of confetti,” the consent order states.

Context: Robinhood’s confetti feature was a UX element that filled the consumers’ screen with a shower of confetti every time they made a trade or achieved a milestone like upgrading to Robinhood Gold. Due to regulatory pressure the company discontinued the use of this feature in 2021 and replaced it with more standard graphics.

But the confetti feature isn’t the only part of its UX that the firm will have to do away with due to its settlement. Massachusetts’ securities regulators have highlighted a whole list of features and UX elements that the firm failed to “reasonably supervise”: